Confiscated
by SnowFallsSlow
Summary: He looked up, the bright light making him wince. “Lemme go…” She grabbed his cheek, shaking his head in a mock-caring way. “Sorry sweetheart, but you’ve been confiscated.” Rated T for later chapters.
1. Prologue

_So, I recently discovered Teen Titans, but I've only seen the first few episodes. My bff let me borrow the first season, but I haven't had the time to watch all of them yet. (Boo, no time.) So, if anything here doesn't fit in with the later episodes (my bff tells me there's, like, five seasons!), I apologize._

**Prologue**

* * *

A green haired boy wandered through the night, kicking irritably at stray stones that happened to cross his path. He looked over his shoulder; scowling at the large 'T' shaped building that stood proudly in the bay. The boy was Beast Boy, a member of Jump City's own super hero team, the Teen Titans. The structure that guarded the bay was his home, often called Titans Tower by the locals in the lore they spun for curious tourists. The leader of the team, a black haired boy called Robin by everyone who knew him, had sent Beast Boy out into the night to cool off after a particularly nasty quarrel the two had had. At the memory of being sent out of the tower like a child to his room, Beast Boy sent another stone flying across the sidewalk. "Don't come back 'til you've calmed down," Robin had ordered, wary of the angered changeling.

"Maybe I won't come back at all," he'd shouted in retort, storming out of the room before any of the others could react. He hadn't cooled down enough to feel bad about that yet, but he knew somewhere in the back of his mind that after a few more circuits around the city he'd feel differently. He sighed loudly, running gloved fingers through his short green hair. It was normally gelled up into short spikes, but the humidity had made him sweat most of the gel out, and, besides, he'd already showered that night, washing most of it out in the process anyway. He swiped the palm of his glove across his forehead, disgusted when it came back damp.

He wondered vaguely how the team would take it if he didn't return. Starfire, the red haired alien girl, was easily the most emotional, and probably would be sad he had left them, and possibly angry that Robin had chased him away. On second thought, the anger at Robin, if there was any, would be short-lived and not very strong, and thus not worth noting. Maybe she'd make more of that sick toenail-flavored "Pudding of Sadness." He wrinkled his nose at the memory. Well, even if she did, he wouldn't have to eat it this time around. Cyborg, his half-metal best friend, would definitely be angry at Robin, and would probably look for him. Cyborg himself had been chased away by Robin before, something that he'd probably remind the young leader of often. That made him smile, the knowledge that he would be missed and possibly avenged through a mean-spirited prank or two. Raven, however, creepy jerk that she was, probably wouldn't even notice, only tearing her purple eyes away from her nasty old books for an infrequent comment like, "It's quiet."

He scowled again, this time kicking a crumpled newspaper. "Jerks," he muttered irately. "Serve 'em right if I didn't-" He paused in mid-sentence. Someone close by, probably in the alley ahead, was sobbing, albeit quietly. He almost hadn't caught it, even with his sensitive ears. As he drew closer, curious, he heard the voice of a sad girl, arguing futilely with someone.

"But…" she whispered, "I don't want to. Please, don't make me do this. Not again." Beast Boy's pace quickened; he was conditioned to automatically help out the civilians, and the prospect of meeting up with someone dangerous in a dark alley held none of the potency for him it did for the average teenager. "He seems like a decent person; why him?" He rounded the corner, pausing at the gaping mouth of the alley, peering into the darkness. He saw no one… no, wait. The dainty silhouette of a teenaged girl was perched atop a trashcan lid, her legs crossed femininely at the ankle.

"Hey, there," he called pensively. He wasn't sure if she was the victim or the assailant, and didn't want to go helping the wrong side. She sniffled in response, and he drew closer, less wary.

"Hello," she answered quietly, her voice shaking as though on the verge of tears. "Can…can you help me?" Her arms were crossed over her chest, as though she were shielding herself from the cold, even though the summer night was hot. Her right hand clutched a handkerchief, something incredibly uncommon. Drawing closer still, he reached out and put a cautious hand on her shoulder.

"I can try," he said, not wanting to make a rash promise. She bit her lip, raising her brown eyes to glance into his. She sucked in a deep breath, letting it out slowly, as though to steady her voice. He noted, somewhere in the back of his mind, that her breath smelled like strawberry-flavored bubblegum, not uncommon for a teenager, he supposed.

"Are you sure?" she asked, her eyes welling up with tears that made her voice crack, the steadying breath apparently ineffective. He nodded. There was no way he was just going to leave her here, helpless, for some sicko to find. She slid off the trashcan, landing unsteadily on her feet. He caught her shoulders, helping her stay upright.

"Are you hurt?" he asked nervously, hoping she hadn't been attacked before he had gotten there. His eyes darted around quickly, checking the dirty alley for anything more menacing than the litter that inhabited it. She shook her head, not looking him in the eye. In a sudden movement, her shoulders tensed beneath his hands and she pinned him against the wall. "What're you- mnn!" The handkerchief that had piqued his interest before was pressed with surprising strength against his face, and the smell of chloroform plagued his senses and coated his tongue. His eyes went wide for a second, but drooped shut as the drug took effect. With a final groan of weakness, he collapsed, unconscious, into his attacker's waiting arms.

As the brown-eyed girl began to walk away, carrying her quarry as a firefighter would a child he had rescued from the flames, a single tear slipped down her cheek.

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_Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Titans... yet._

_...SnowFallsSlow..._


	2. A Mile In Your Shoes

_Here's chapter two! I want to say thank you to everyone who read my last chapter; this has way more hits than my other story. Maybe Titans fans are nicer than Potter fans. _

_Oh, yeah, and I mention something about Beast Boy's belt buckle blinking? (Jeez, that's a lot of "B"s) My friend told me it does that when the alarm goes off, so I hope that's right._

* * *

The humid night air finally gave way to a light drizzle, quenching the sweaty earth. The brown-eyed girl paused, letting the rain cool her as well. Then, as she had done too many times before to sleep peacefully at night, she crouched, carefully setting the boy in her arms on the ground. She quietly slipped out of her shoes and took his off of his feet as well, pulling them on her own. Grimacing at the unusual warmth of his shoes, she reminded herself that he had been walking for a while before he had stumbled upon her. The shoes were sturdy, well made for the constant running the young hero had to do, and had stylized paw prints etched on the bottom that made her smile. They were slightly too big; her ankles were sure to slide out as she walked. Sighing dejectedly, she placed her own, well-worn sneakers on the unconscious boy's chest for easy carrying, and carefully picked him back up, wishing that somehow he'd wake up and run.

She started walking again, taking a few strides to get used to a new pair of shoes. This odd-seeming ritual had been invented by her partner in crime to lead police and other irritants away from the true scene of the crime. Footprints of the victim continued passed where they had actually disappeared, and suddenly stopped in the middle of nowhere. Something nagged in the back of her mind –if the boy's cyborg friend's eye was as mechanical as it appeared, it would be able to analyze the depth of the footprints and translate the slight dissimilarity to a large difference in weight spread across feet not quite the right size- but she dismissed it; the idea had come from a sci-fi movie she'd watched a while ago.

The stars, whispering stories she could never remember in their formations, drew her eyes skyward as they peeked out from behind the swollen bellies of rain clouds. Her hair, slick with rain, stuck to her flushed cheeks, reminding her that she'd forgotten a ponytail that day. She glanced down at her prey, eyeing the boy hero guiltily. The drizzling rain was misting across his face like morning dew on grass, tiny pools of coolness probably refreshing after the sticky hours of darkness he had walked. A drop gathered enough weight to slither across his forehead and down his cheek, causing him to shake his head a little; maybe it tickled.

The chloroform was doing its job, though; in light of the trivial discomfort that would have woken him up if he were merely sleeping, his eyes stayed closed and his breathing steady. She wished, once more, in vain that he would stir; open his eyes and get himself safely away from her; from the place she was taking him. Trying to focus on something else, she closed her eyes, gritting her teeth through the strawberry gum she had forgotten she was chewing. Unwillingly, she forced her eyes back open, keeping them safely off the green boy, instead focusing on her path. In two hundred more yards or so, she'd reach an abandoned old shop that still had an awning to shield its long-gone customers from the intermittent rain that Jump City received, being a costal city. There, she'd remove his shoes and put on her own, the soles of which were still dry. But, in the meantime, it wouldn't do to be running into things.

She'd opened her eyes just in time, too, because she had to sidestep a young, bitter-looking boy who glowered at her as she passed. He was crouched under a canopy of a grocery store, his dark eyes accusing her of crimes unknown. He didn't, however, seem to take any special notice of the boy out cold in her arms; perhaps in the dark, and with wet hair, he looked like a normal boy and she your average girl carrying her friend home. She smiled a little, liking that idea more than she should have. Yes, she was Miss Normal, and her poor friend had tripped and knocked himself out or something. She entertained this fantasy for longer than was healthy, using it to keep her mind off their true relationship. Unfortunately, the too-familiar awning was less than two yards away now, the token of the plan snapping her back to the sad reality. She was a villain, he a victim.

Sighing, she traded shoes again, and was about to take off, leaving his shoes forsaken and lonely when his belt buckle started flashing red. She stared at it in surprise for a moment, unsure what the silently blinking light meant, then realized it was probably some sort of alarm or possibly a tracking device. "That could be a problem…" she murmured, setting him once more on the ground. He gave a quiet groan, his hand beginning to clench and his facial features becoming almost worried-looking, but his hand relaxed and he let out a soft breath, his visage smoothing again. She let out a relieved breath she hadn't known she was holding. Frowning, her hands reached out for his belt, looking for the clasp that would let her remove it. Her probing fingers found it and his belt slid off in her hands. She calmly hung the belt on the locked, rusted doorknob, dangling it above his abandoned shoes, where it splashed its odd red glow across them, before taking it back again, only to return it seconds later.

Slowly –her arms were starting to get sore, though carrying boys who got in the wrong place at the right time was something she did more than a little too often- she picked him back up, rolling her shoulders a bit to lessen the ache. She sighed again, looking down at Beast Boy's serene face. Maybe, she thought hopefully, maybe when her partner saw this innocent boy's trusting face –trusting even when he shouldn't be, as with her, in the alley- maybe she would change her mind, tell her to take him back to where she'd left his shoes as though nothing had happened.

A quick glance over her shoulder, back at the tower across the water that the famous boy called home, told her there was little hope of that. Her cohort in crime was crazy, she knew, and would regard cheating the world of a boy such as this as a personal challenge, and eluding his friends after the fact as a delightful game. With that rational thought in the forefront of her mind, she stepped out into the curtain of rain.

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_Disclaimer: See first chapter._

_...SnowFallsSlow..._


	3. Till It's Gone

_Sorry this took so long to get up; I'm terrible with dialouge, and there's a ton of it in this chapter. And, finally, the other Titans make their appearance! Yay, everybody clap._

_Be sure to tell me what you think!_

* * *

"Way to go, Rob," Cyborg congratulated sarcastically. "Chased off another of your teammates, did you?" Robin gritted his teeth, keeping his eyes glued firmly to the computer screen as he typed in Beast Boy's tracker's serial number. "Look," Cyborg taunted, "it's the Burger King; he's gotta have it his way!"

"Can it, Cyborg," Robin growled through clenched teeth. "I'm trying to find him." The irritation masked the worry that was eating at him. Beast Boy had been gone for almost four hours, and hadn't checked in or shown up at the robbery they'd had to stop. Where could the boy be?

"What's going on?" Raven asked, having only caught the last part of Robin's statement as she walked into the living room. She raised an eyebrow at Cyborg leaning against the counter, arms crossed over his chest like a pouting child. Robin was sulking at the computer, sitting rigidly in the rolling chair as the screen loaded a street map of Jump City.

"Go on, Robin," Cyborg said heatedly. "Tell her how you can't find BB." A teacup in the cupboard shattered, encased in dark energy and crushed. Cyborg turned toward the muffled noise, and then glanced back at Raven. Her face was composed, her purple eyes narrowing only slightly.

"He hasn't come back yet?" Cyborg shook his head, answering before Robin could defend himself.

"Nope. Rob here must've upset him more than he bargained for. He's good at that." Cyborg pushed away from the counter, headed for the door, shaking his head disgustedly. "I'm gonna go into the city, see if I can find him myself." He glowered at Robin, then made eye contact with Raven. "Call me if he shows up, alright?"

Staring at the ground, Cyborg made his way to the garage, heading to take the T-Car out for a run through the city, partly to find his friend, partly to cool off himself. Robin's haughty attitude bothered him a lot; the spiky-haired leader had been ragging on Beast Boy about, well everything. His room was too dirty; he wasn't pushing himself hard enough during training –though Beast Boy had just told Cyborg the other day that he had beaten his top running speed, without going cheetah; he needed to get up earlier, stuff like that.

Even still, it'd surprised him when it turned into a shouting match, and he'd never expected BB to storm out like that. Cyborg started the car, driving quickly through the underground tunnel that led off the tiny island. "Hope he's okay…" he muttered to himself, trying not to think about all the kinds of trouble the younger boy could have gotten himself into in four hours.

* * *

Raven's face was eerily calm as she and Starfire listened to Robin explain that he couldn't be blamed for Beast Boy's disappearance. The team's youngest member had been out of line, Robin announced, but, he assured them, the boy would be back soon. The computer was running slowly, its hard drive clogged with too many files and –as Robin was quick to point out- Beast Boy's latest bout of computer games hadn't helped its speed any, so it was having a harder time than usual processing the information necessary to locate Beast Boy. "I'll have Cyborg look at it when he gets back."

"Please, Robin, it is not only Beast Boy who was outside the line. You were being… unpleasant." The red-haired girl floated over to their leader, placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "But, we will find him, and then you two may do the kissing." Robin's eyes widened and he jerked his shoulder out from under Starfire's hand, twisting around to look at her, and Raven choked on the breath she'd been taking in.

"The kissing?" she coughed. Out in the hallway, light bulbs shattered, raining glass down from the ceiling. Starfire nodded sagely. "Do you mean…" Raven paused, searching her mind for a phrase Starfire could have possibly meant. "Did you mean 'kiss and make up'?" Starfire paused, thinking about it.

"Oh! Yes, that is what I meant. I was listening to the radio this morning and a man said it in his song," she began, then seemed to realize what she had accidentally implied. Her eyes when wide as well, and her cheeks reddened to match her hair. "Oh, oh! I did not mean to say that you-" Robin nodded his head, trying to cut the flustered girl off before things got more embarrassing. "Not that there is anything wrong with-" Raven left the room, pulling herself into a sphere of dark energy and rematerializing in her bedroom. A book on her shelf turned black and opened itself, ripping its own pages out. A second and third joined it, and a pillow on her bed burst, sending cotton flying.

"Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos…"

* * *

Somewhere clear across town, in the outskirts of the rundown business section of the city, Beast Boy woke up. He kept his eyes closed, though, not sure he was quite ready to get out of bed yet. Something was off, though. His room didn't smell like his room, more like sweat, sweat of people he didn't recognize and… His eyes shot open, and he tried to sit up, wrenching his shoulders back. The bed he'd been snoozing so soundly in smelled like blood and sweat, not a great combination. It also smelled of bleach, like someone was futilely trying to cover up the other two smells. Panicked breaths wrenched themselves from his chest, his heart pounding a hundred miles per hour. His eyes darted around, trying to find something familiar in the bizarre surroundings he found himself in.

The room was dark and he had to strain his eyes to see anything at all. Speakers lined the walls, half of their mesh covers broken. He was in a creaky bed with a hard spring mattress. His wrists were handcuffed to the thick pipes that made up the headboard, and his bare feet were in the same predicament. He closed his eyes, trying to slow his frightened breathing and think logically. A forced, slow breath in, a shaking, deliberate breath out. In, out. When he could hear his heartbeat coming down to a more acceptable pace, he opened his eyes again, glancing around with a more analytical eye.

The room was small, and circular, if the low ceiling was any indicator. The speakers were stacked three or four high, none of them matching; they'd probably been picked up at a thrift store. He didn't see any glowing words or numbers that would have indicated a radio or stereo set they were hooked up to. That was odd. The bed, though rickety, seemed to have been bolted to the floor; he tried rolling, shifting his weight to tip it over and it remained upright. Sighing heavily, he lay back down. The strain of half-sitting while wrenching his shoulders back was starting to hurt more than he wanted to deal with at the moment. The thin pillow his head touched was cold with water; he remembered with slight disgust how hot it had been…however long ago it was now. His hair was still damp, probably from sweat.

The quiet scrape of a turning doorknob caught his attention; his eyes darted toward the sound before he fully knew where it was coming from. The door he hadn't yet noted slowly swung open and he heard a heavy sigh. The first thing he noticed was the faint smell of strawberry bubblegum.

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_Disclaimer: Still not mine. Darn._

_...SnowFallsSlow..._


	4. Not As It Seems

_Here's Chapter 3, Not As It Seems. The only reason I point this out, the title I mean, is that it's sort of a hit to the vauge mystery that you may not even have noticed. If anyone knows what I'm talking about, you deserve a cookie. You probably won't _get_ a cookie, but you'll deserve one._

_Woo-whoo! Based on the feedback on the way I wrote the Titans last chapter, I decided to include them more than I had originally intended._

* * *

The brown-eyed girl, her slightly damp hair –they didn't have a hair dryer here, much to her dissatisfaction- now up in her usual ponytail, opened the door to the little room, sighing at the thought of all the preparation she'd completed and all she had yet to do. Though light spilled into the circular room from the hallway she stood in, she reached out and flicked on the light in the room, a bare light bulb buzzing to life. She looked to the bed, which she had had to repair just hours ago, tightening the- Her eyes widened with surprise. He was awake, staring at her with wide, frightened green eyes.

He started pulling at the handcuffs –stolen from a few police officers that had disappeared from work and had never been seen again- that held him to the bed that looked like it belonged in a cheap motel room, also startling. The boys rarely woke up this soon, and were never lucid enough to think of escape. There was something else in those frightened eyes, too: recognition.

It was her, the girl that had attacked him in the alley! His eyes watered from the sudden light, but he ignored it. He had to get free, now! Cautiously, as though expecting him to bite her –which, come to think of it, wasn't a bad idea-, she took a step or two forward. "Beast Boy?" she murmured. How did she know his name? He was even more alarmed now, and she took another step forward, toward him.

"No!" he shouted, his voice hoarse and cracking from disuse. "Get away from me!" Ignoring his pleas, the girl drew closer, soon standing next to the bed. She cocked her head at him, holding out three fingers.

"How many fingers am I holding up?" she asked, her voice holding a note of surprise. Beast Boy squinted at her, confused.

"What does that have to do with anything?" He cleared his throat subconsciously, trying to make his voice sound normal. She peered at him, raising an eyebrow.

"Just answer the question," she sighed, looking at his eyes. His pupils were responding correctly to the light, and he wanted to know the purpose of her question. Perhaps the dark-haired leader had predicted something like this happening, and, like the kings of old, had exposed his team to poisons to protect them. Maybe the boy just had a heightened resistance to such things, or a heightened metabolism that burned through it quickly; letting him function sooner than others would have been able to.

His green eyes, innocent and trusting in the alley, and frightened mere moments ago, were now angry. "Three." She almost recoiled at the venom he spat with the word, and took a few seconds to recompose herself. "Why am I here? Who are you?" he growled. She turned her back to him, trying to ignore his accusing eyes and angry words.

"Not supposed to be awake yet," she muttered to herself, tugging on her ponytail nervously. "She'll want to know; I should probably go tell her now," she contemplated aloud. She chewed uneasily on her thumbnail, glancing at him over her shoulder. "But what about him?" she countered herself. She turned around, facing him once more, but carefully keeping her eyes off his. Instead, they strayed to his wrists, bound to the pipe headboard with handcuffs that had worked before. The beige paint was scraped off the two bars the handcuffs grasped, proof that others had tried escape and failed. "He'll be fine," she assured herself, turning on her heel and leaving the room. She hit the light switch as she left, closing the door behind her and plunging him back into absolute darkness.

* * *

Cyborg, his systems running at a much faster rate than the Tower's computer –which had probably caught a virus somewhere-, had punched Beast Boy's tracker's serial number into his arm, and was letting his computer half navigate, driving with his human side and peering out at the dark, drying sidewalks in hopes of spotting the sequestered shape shifter. He'd considered putting up flyers, but that seemed a bit degrading, like calling his friend an animal that was incapable of returning on his own. He'd also thought about contacting the missing persons department of the police, but the Jump City Police were sort of… incompetent in the eyes of the young team of heroes. Besides, Beast Boy wasn't some random runaway; he was just a little peeved with Robin, which was totally understandable.

He continued cruising, keeping his headlights on and his eyes open. The lights splashed over a young, dark-eyed boy, ambling slowly along the sidewalk. Frowning, the boy raised his hand to shield his eyes from the bright light. Cyborg pulled over, rolling the window down. Just because he wasn't reporting the case or putting up missing posters didn't mean he couldn't ask around. "Hey," he called, turning off his headlights so the boy could see him better. "You seen a kid with green hair lately?" Raising an eyebrow, the boy pulled at his hair, which, Cyborg noticed just a little too late, was blonde with dark green tips and streaks. "Uh…" Cyborg's human eye blinked. That was unexpected. "He's got green skin, too. He's about this tall," Cyborg stuck his arm out the window, raising it –thanks to his mechanical eye- to Beast Boy's exact height before continuing. "And he can shape shift." The boy thought for a second.

"Does he wear, like, purple and black spandex stuff?" Cyborg nodded. "I think I might have. He got a girlfriend?" This time, Cyborg raised an eyebrow.

"Not that I know of. Why?" The boy's hands went into his pocket as he shrugged.

"This chick was carryin' him. He looked pretty wasted." He grinned, apparently finding this amusing.

"Couldn't've been BB," Cyborg decided, shaking his head. "Thanks anyway." He shrugged again, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb.

"She was headed that way, if that helps any." And, with that last bit of guidance, the boy walked off. Cyborg flipped his headlights on again, driving in the direction the boy had indicated. It was the only lead he had, and, besides, it was the same direction his computer was telling him Beast Boy's tracker was in.

* * *

A girl sat in a dark room, the only light coming from the television screens she was watching intently. Glowing green and red numbers next to her displayed various CDs and tracks, each one also proudly declaring "**MUTE**." There were no speaker boxes in the girl's room, but she didn't seem to care. Her sunglasses –apparently even the dull light was too much for her eyes- reflected images, a boy in circular room, chained to a rickety bed stolen from a rundown motel, an empty hallway, a girl in a small, dark room, watching screens interestedly, all tinted orange from the lenses. She calmly blew a bubble, relishing the distinctive taste of cinnamon flavored gum, as she reached forward and grabbed a small rectangle off the desk in front of her. Universal remote in hand, she kept her eyes on the screen with the struggling boy –he really shouldn't have been awake, June was right- as she pressed mute again. The word faded from one CD player, then another, and then another as she pressed the button again and again, pointing it at different radios. The volume –cranked up as far as it would go on each- was shown for a moment and then disappeared. On the soundless monitor in front of her, the speakers noiselessly clicked to life, blasting music she couldn't hear.

The boy, however, was in an entirely different position. His world –small, dark, and above all, silent- changed in mere seconds, now filled with earsplitting noise. She watched, smiling, as his eyes went wide and then screwed shut, as though that would block the noise out. His mouth opened in a soundless scream of agony, surprising her momentarily, and his hands strained at the handcuffs, trying to cover his ears. But, the surprise faded to mirth as she recalled his particularly acute senses. She sat back, hands resting behind her head as she looked on, content, pleased with herself, her plan.

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_Disclaimer: Haven't you been paying attention? They're not mine._

_...SnowFallsSlow..._


	5. Something's Wrong

_Sorry for the long wait between updates; I couldn't get on the computer for a while. Speaking of which, tomorrow's my last day of Spring Break, so I won't be able to update anywhere near as often as I have been, 'cause I'll be in school. (Boo school, yay knowledge)_

* * *

Robin held out his communicator, waiting for Cyborg to answer. Starfire was standing behind him, looking over his shoulder, also waiting. The screen flickered to life, Cyborg looking down at them through the screen on his arm.

"Cyborg," Robin greeted. "You found anything?" He shook his head.

"Not yet, but I'm still looking. You got a lock on him yet?" Robin made an irritated face.

"No. I had to reboot the computer; the system wasn't running correctly. It's still warming up, I think." Cyborg scowled at the leader and the anxious girl leaning over his shoulder.

"So y'all just called to complain? That's not cool."

"No, Cyborg," Robin began, but Starfire cut him off, half pushing him out of the way so she could give Cyborg her message.

"We have also called to give you the support of emotions!" she declared, grinning broadly. The metallic teen rolled his human eye, offering the red-haired girl a smile.

"Thanks, Star. Rob, if you don't mind, I'm gonna get back to lookin' for my friend." And, with that, he hung up on the two of them, shaking his head. The T-Car was pulled over, parked on the side of the road. He opened the door and slid out, as he had been about to when the two had called him, closing it carefully and clicking the auto-lock button twice just to be sure. According to the readings his systems were getting, Beast Boy was close. He tore his eyes away from the miniature map to examine his surroundings. Off the sidewalk a little ways, in the hardening mud created by the short spell of rain they'd had, were Beast Boy's footprints, clearly outlined by his mechanical eye. But… the depth was off, his cybernetic side noted.

Data streamed through the computer half of his brain, performing calculations at speeds that would have made any math teacher dizzy. According to its quick computation, in order to make tracks this deep, Beast Boy would've had to weigh over a hundred fifty (154.76, his systems corrected) pounds more than he did. Taking this oddity into consideration, Cyborg pulled up a previous image of Beast Boy's footprints stored in his cerebral processor –much like a memory, audio played as an image of his green friend, a handful of mud pulled back, ready to throw, came to the forefront of his mind _("Think fast, Cy!")_- and he zoomed in on them.

This set in front of him was all wrong. The feet were angled too far inward and the strides were too long. Sighing, he followed the tracks anyway. The worst thing that could possibly happen was that he would run into someone who had stolen Beast Boy's shoes, and with feet that small, they weren't likely to be that much trouble.

With his long, quick strides, Cyborg started down the sidewalk, making good time. He opened the two-way screen on his arm, connecting to Beast Boy's communicator. "C'mon, BB, pick up," he murmured, anxious for his young friend.

* * *

June twirled her ponytail around her pointer finger, biting her lip. She could feel the bass through the wall, coming from the room Beast Boy was trapped in, and she hadn't even walked by it yet. She'd always had sort of a horrified awe when it came to her crazy cohort, Angelina. June herself would have never thought of the blasting music to keep the boys disoriented and subdued, nor the darkness to keep them from recognizing anything on the outside chance one of them had managed to escape.

Of course, had it been up to June, none of this would have ever started. She'd never have kidnapped the first boy, not even "just for fun," as Angelina had said when she initially convinced her to help, through terrible threats and smooth assurances. She knew she'd never have gotten addicted as Angelina seemed to have -she still wished that it would stop, that Angelina would tell her she was bored with this game and they needed a new one. The thrills got to the other girl, adrenaline junkie she was, and she didn't have do any of the dirty work. Angelina didn't seem to have any trouble sleeping at night, knowing what she'd done to too many children, too many families. June shook her head, trying to clear it of such treacherous thoughts. They wouldn't help anybody.

She always hated this part, stalking around the building while one of them was in that room. Even worse, she usually had to pass right by the room; she had a sneaking suspicion that Angelina did that on purpose. The bass thudded loudly, though June more felt than heard it, felt it shaking through her legs and pounding in her bones. She could hardly imagine how bad it was _inside_ the soundproofed room. The kitchen, her destination, was just four or five yards away. She could make it if she focused, ignored thoughts of the poor boy locked in that accursed room. Closing her eyes, she practically charged forward, into the tiny kitchen. She opened her eyes, breathing a sigh of relief before looking around. There was an old refrigerator, a stolen microwave, and a half broken toaster, but plenty of counter space, so it didn't feel as crowded as it was.

A note, in Angelina's large, cramped handwriting was stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet. 'Bring him lunch,' it said simply. June's eyes went wide. Go into that room, and make him eat? That was the last thing she wanted to do. So, of course, it was the first thing Angelina was going to make her do. June opened the refrigerator, leaning down to find something to eat, both for herself and for Beast Boy. "Can't let him suffer in peace, can you, Ang?" she muttered, spying the plate that was clearly for him.

* * *

Raven had composed herself –though it was unlikely that she'd be able to think the term 'kiss and make up' again for a while- and came back down to the living room to see if she could help any. After all, though she wasn't about to go screaming it to the heavens, Raven was worried about the young boy, having lived the streets of Jump City for a short time before joining up with the Titans. The streets, particularly at night, were no place for one to be wandering alone unless you knew what you were up against.

The feeling, which had started out as a mildly uneasy thought, had been growing steadily edgier as the time crawled by. Even more worrying was the fact she was worrying; Raven wasn't one for unnecessary emotion, but she was getting the same feeling in her stomach she had had when the Puppet King had been holding the boys over the fire. Robin looked up and saw her coming in. He pressed a button that transferred the image from his communicator, Cyborg, presumably with some news, to the large television screen that watched over the living room, so that she and Starfire could see without invading his personal space.

"You were saying, Cyborg? I'd like to try to kill that virus before it gets anything important." Cyborg shook his head, the virus that had infected the computer the least of his worries.

"Computer's not gonna help us much finding Beast Boy." Starfire flew up, getting close to the screen as though that would help her understand Cyborg's statement.

"Please, what do you mean by this?" she asked. "Surely it will be of use." Cyborg opened his mouth to explain, but thought better of it. The feeling in the pit of Raven's stomach intensified, to the point of actual physical sickness. Her face remained smooth, calm.

"I think it'll just be easier to show y'all." The metal man turned his arm away from himself, showing them an abandoned shop, faded, illegible words painted on a cracked, dirty window and a torn, striped awning stretching over a boarded off door. On the rusted door handle, a belt hung above a pair of muddy shoes, slipped off and deserted, sitting with one heel elevated on the other, as though having been removed while standing and holding something; taken off without touching them.

They were Beast Boy's.

* * *

_Disclaimer: Nope, not mine, much to my dissatisfaction. _

_Tell me how I did on the dialogue, 'cause I'm sooooo nervous about it._

_...SnowFallsSlow..._


	6. Suffer In Peace

_Well, I finally finished the next chapter; hooray for the weekend! _

_I hope you enjoy this. It feels a little drug (or is that dragged?) out to me. _

* * *

Beast Boy lay still, gritting his teeth to force himself into silence. Screaming would only make it louder in the little room, he reasoned; probably the only logical thought he could entertain at the moment. The speakers, so seemingly pointless at first, had shown him their true malice. He wouldn't have been surprised to find out his ears were bleeding; at least fourteen different songs were blasting all around him in constant tidal wave of sound. His sensitive eardrums were in excruciating pain, and he hadn't even known that was possible.

June opened the door, wincing at the wave of sound that washed over her. But, she soon realized, Beast Boy was in much worse shape. As she flipped on the light before entering further, she could see, thanks to his skintight spandex, that his muscles were all tensed so much that it probably hurt. The look on his face was that of pure agony, his eyes closed tightly and mouth set in an uncharacteristic grimace. Perhaps Angelina hadn't been exaggerating when she'd informed her of the young hero's acute senses. Of course, the hard rock, screamo, and –was that a country song?- other types of music wouldn't have been easy on anyone's ears at this volume.

Luckily, Angelina had seen it fit to tell her where the surge-protected power strip that made the speakers run resided. June tiptoed –not that it was necessary- over and pulled the plug out of the socket, mercifully muting the sound. For almost a full twenty seconds (June counted slowly; one Gotham City, two Gotham City, three Gotham City…), Beast Boy gave no indication that he had noticed. Slowly, he opened his eyes, blinking a few times as they adjusted to the light. His muscles remained tense as he glanced around apprehensively, glad the noise had stopped, but wondering who had stopped it. His eyes fell on June, and he cringed, as though expecting a blow.

She sighed, blowing a stray hair that hadn't made it into her ponytail out of her face. "Brought you food," she muttered, subconsciously tucking the hair behind her ear.

"Can't hear you," he half-shouted in a flat voice. His hearing was damaged, she noted silently, and he was compensating without realizing it, trying to make his voice sound normal to himself. It was possible the damage was permanent, not that it would matter for long. Still, she'd tell Angelina. Maybe she'd take pity on the boy.

"I brought you food," she said a little more loudly, enunciating as though it would help him understand. She held out the plate –a PB and J that she'd cut into fourths so he could eat it and single-serve bag of potato chips- to reiterate. Comprehension flashed through his eyes, and he turned his face away from her.

"I'm not hungry," he stated in the same flat, half-shouting tone. She didn't need to hear his stomach growl to know he was lying, but it asserted itself anyway. She rolled her eyes, sauntering over to the bed and sitting down beside him. The springs in the mattress groaned in protest, sagging further under her weight. Beast Boy looked over at her, eyes wide with surprise. _He couldn't hear me coming_, she reminded herself. Steeling herself for the battle that was sure to come, June picked up a fourth of the sandwich and offered it to him. "Said I wasn't hungry," he objected, turning his head away again.

June rubbed her temples slowly with her left hand, her free hand. He _had_ to be hungry. It had been at least five hours since he had last eaten –Angelina had told her approximately when the boy had left the tower- and that was only if he'd just finished a meal before he'd stormed out. Besides, it was late and most people were up snacking at this hour; though Angelina's note had said 'lunch,' it hadn't meant noontime. Both June's father and Angelina's father had worked third shift –one of the few things they had in common-, so neither of them saw a problem with calling a meal in the middle of the night 'lunch.'

Smiling her most condescending smile, June countered "Liar."

Beast Boy responded without missing a beat. "Kidnapper." She winced, apparently unprepared for that jab. "Why don't you just let me go and I'll get my own food?" She shook her head.

"Can't do that." She paused for a second. "Ha! So you are hungry!" She grinned, smug. The grin faded quickly, though, and she returned to business. "Besides, _I _made this, just for you. Angeli-" she cut herself off, eyes widening a little at the information she'd almost given away. "Er… my… uh…" What _was _Angelina to her besides 'Angelina?' Certainly not friend, but definitely not boss. Acquaintance? Ally? Associate? No, that made kidnapping sound like a business she ran. (A small part of her mind smiled at that. _June's Kidnapping Service! You got 'em, we want 'em!_) "My partner…" -that wasn't too bad, was it? She continued, regardless. "My partner made a ham sandwich for you, but I remembered you don't like meat. Wasn't that nice of me?" She held out the peanut butter and jelly sandwich again, as though offering a cat something it had turned down the first time.

She resisted the urge to make a face at how sugary-sweet she was trying to make her voice sound, trying to appease the boy in front of her. June couldn't take being hated; it made her feel worse than all of the rest of it. The families of the boys hated her, she knew, but it was with the vague angry hatred that one felt for someone who had hit the dog of a friend with a car; it wasn't directed at her, merely at what she had done. Besides, she'd never have to meet them, or even see them if the case didn't make to the news. Beast Boy, on the other hand, was here and lucid enough to hate her. She didn't want him to, even though she knew once he met Angelina he wouldn't anymore. His stomach growled again, and she could see his resolve weakening. The corner of her mouth went up. What was that old saying? The best way to a man's heart is through his stomach?

* * *

Raven stood statue-still in the tower's living room, arms crossed over her chest as Robin and Cyborg debated what to do next. Cyborg was in favor of contacting every superhero within a few hundred miles and asking them to either look or watch for the young hero; Robin, on the other hand, was thinking more along the lines of waiting a little longer before getting everyone on the planet involved. He was certain this was all some complex prank conceived to make a fool of him and his team or some other such nonsense. He was sure that the minute he got, say, his mentor, Batman, interested enough in the mess to come around to Jump City, Beast Boy would turn up somewhere in the tower. Raven could practically _taste_ his irritation in the air.

She dug her nails into her arms to focus on something other than the nagging, nauseous worry eating at her. She wished the boy would just come home. A quick glance in Starfire's direction told Raven that she felt the same way. But, it seemed that they were hoping in vain, because the doors stayed shut, and the two boys kept arguing.

Cyborg scowled at them, his sneering face looming over them largely. "Well, Rob," he stated irritably, "do whatever. I'm gonna keep looking for him." His screen flickered off, hiding him from their view. Raven resolved to go and meditate, so she could help look for Beast Boy, however she was able. She wasn't any use to anyone with all of her emotions going haywire. She cringed as another teacup exploded, complete with the saucer. She turned on her heel, bidding goodnight to Starfire and Robin before she could be asked where she was going. She needn't have bothered; they were used to her continuous comings and goings.

* * *

Somewhere clear across town, hidden in a large, rundown building, a small, dark room, filled with glowing numbers proclaiming, via rapidly changing numbers, various CD's on a range of tracks, and several television screens, sat empty. The swivel chair was turned toward the door, as though the inhabitant of the room had left in a hurry. The screens, one a wide angle shot of a boy reluctantly eating a sandwich someone else –a girl, perched on the bed he was laying on- was holding, another an empty stretch of hallway, a third a small kitchen with a table, also deserted, and others trained on rooms equally vacant, all bore one splotch of color: a small, blinking, red light that proclaimed 'REC.'

* * *

_My bff, the one who loaned me the DVD that I'm borrow-keeping, told me about that One Gotham City thing, and it made me laugh hard, so I put it in there. It's actually kind of scary how much she knows about the show._

_Disclaimer: Not mine. _

_...SnowFallsSlow..._


	7. Before You Leap

_Hey, I'm back! Loads of school work, but I find this more interesting to do. (That's probably gonna bite me in the butt soon...)_

_Hope you all enjoy! Questions, comments, plot-holes and predictions are welcome!_

* * *

Robin massaged his temples; this was incredibly frustrating. Beast Boy had gone missing, supposedly. He had to have; there was no other solution. Yet, there was no evidence that anything, bad or otherwise, had happened to the rogue shape shifter; no gloating message from any villain the Titans had ever encountered or heard of, no explanation from the boy himself, not even a heads up from the JCPD that he was helping them out. It was like he had just dropped off the face of the earth.

That was mostly why he was arguing with Cyborg about involving the Justice Leaguers, the fact that there was almost nothing to go on at all. If this were some form of prank, he reasoned weakly, Beast Boy wouldn't have thought ahead to make it look like he'd been attacked, but if someone had attacked him, taken him, there'd be _something_. The only thing they had to go on was the difference in Cyborg's two images of Beast Boy's muddy footprints, one from a while ago, and one taken that night.

Robin groaned, aggravated. Letting out a sigh of defeat, he opened up a private channel on his communicator, entering various codes and passwords to get in contact with Batman. It was late, however, and, as was to be expected of the Dark Knight of Gotham, his mentor was out fighting some heroic battle. Robin simply left him a message, adding as an afterthought a few seconds visual of the two images that Cyborg had sent him of the footprints. He knew the caped crusader could freeze the images and get what he needed, and it was faster and more likely to get the man's attention than sending him an email.

He sighed. That done, he really had nothing else to do. Without clues to pour over or leads to follow, all he could do was either go out and search the city –Cyborg and Starfire had that handled, she'd left less than ten minutes ago- or wait. Even if Starfire and Cyborg had requested his help, Beast Boy was probably still peeved about their spat and wouldn't listen to anything the tight-wearing leader had to say if he was the one to find him. And waiting… waiting just gave him time to ponder every horrible thing that could possibly be happening to the missing changeling.

* * *

Starfire flew wide circles through the city's airspace, her eyes scanning the streets continuously. She had no idea what she was looking for, but it beat sitting around doing nothing while her friend was lost, possibly injured or in trouble. She bit her lip, keeping her mind focused on a mental image of the framed photo she had on her dresser –the five of them, laughing and smiling, arms around each other's shoulders or hands behind their heads- to create enough joy to remain flying. Her hand clutched her communicator –she knew it was hers by the sticker of a kitten on the back- as she debated calling Cyborg again. Perhaps he had found something? Half-heartedly, she reattached the device to her belt. He was beginning to seem aggravated, and she did not wish to upset him by calling without news.

She angled her body to change the direction she was flying in, swooping downwards to more closely examine the deserted streets. No sign of him. She raised her arms, shooting upward and hovering, contemplating what part of the city she should search next. "Oh, I hope that he is the okay."

* * *

Beast Boy gritted his teeth together, trying to block out the loud, random music. Unfortunately, June –through a lot of persistent questioning, he'd had managed to get her name- had plugged the speakers back in. She was incredibly apologetic, perhaps too much so for a villain that had pulled something like this off, but remained firm in the idea that it had to be done. Her partner, she explained, would be very, _very_ angry if it was left unplugged for too long, which wouldn't be good for either of them.

It hadn't been easy at first to force himself to talk to her, but he reminded himself constantly that the more he knew about her, the more information he could pass along to the others the first chance he got. Besides, he'd seen on one of those cop shows that you were supposed to familiarize yourself with your kidnapper; it was some sort of psychological game that made them more likely to let you go or something. After the a few questions, he realized if he kept his tone even and pleasant, she would tell him just about anything he asked. She was incredibly nervous, constantly fidgeting and chewing her lip, and refused to disobey anything that her partner –she wouldn't tell him her name- had told her or suggested to her.

After a little while, talking had gotten easier, but then she'd had to leave. He looked up at his arms, peering through the deafening darkness at his aching wrists. He hadn't even realized that he was pulling against the handcuffs, but the skin on his wrists was getting raw and red. His mind was wandering, trying to focus on anything but the loud, pounding music that surrounded him. It meandered toward his friends, wondering vaguely what they were doing right then. It had to have been at least three hours since he'd stormed out of the tower; he'd been walking no less than two.

Cyborg, he was sure, was looking for him by now, scouring the streets and asking around. Beast Boy rolled his shoulders, trying to ease the ache he'd been causing without realizing it. Starfire was probably mixing a bowl of that nasty sadness pudding stuff; he could picture her forcing some down Robin's throat much as she had done to him when she'd offered him a taste. If that was true, Robin was probably gagging or something worse at that exact second. That made him smile a little, in spite of himself. Raven… he had no idea what Raven would be doing; that depended on how she interpreted his disappearance. If she thought he was still cooling off, she was probably reading or making tea, not worried for him in the slightest. But if she sensed something was amiss, and who knew, with powers like hers, she might be-

All of a sudden, the door swung open, artificial light streaming in and making his eyes water, tearing him from his train of thought. "June?" he called over the noise, less painful now that it wasn't trapped in the tiny room. The silhouette made no response, merely stalking over and unplugging the speakers. Seconds later, the door swung closed and the lights flicked on, revealing a tall girl with thick brown hair spilling across her shoulders. Her eyes were covered, much like Robin covered his with a mask, with a pair of thick-rimmed sunglasses that reflected the room in an orange tint. She walked toward him with confidence and grace that escaped June, loudly snapping a piece of gum scented cinnamon.

* * *

_Let's see if anyone remembers the importance of cinnamon._

_Not as much Cyborg this chapter; I wanted to give Robin and Starfire some spotlight._

_Disclaimer: Not mine, else this'd be on TV._

_...SnowFallsSlow..._


	8. Words Will Never Hurt Me

_Well, I've been told that I've got Robin down a little better, so I decided to put up my next chapter of _Confiscated_. I hope you all enjoy._

_Also, school's out and I'm back from my (Internet-and-computer-less) vacation, so I hope that updates will get a little more frequent. Sorry about the wait._

* * *

Angelina cracked her neck as she slowly walked toward the trapped boy. He'd thought she was June; how had he gotten the girl's name? She could only think of one way. If she was right, she decided, narrowing her eyes behind her sunglasses, June was going to have a lot of extra chores involving the changeling boy. It made June uncomfortable to deal with the boys that they trapped, Angelina knew for a fact and exploited constantly. That was one of many things that she did to prove herself in charge, forcing June to do things that Angelina knew she didn't want to do. Her left hand, hanging down her side so her fingers brushed her thigh, stroked the small key ring that held two keys, quietly jingling, waiting to be used to unlock the handcuffs.

The boy had grown increasingly tense with each silent step she took forward, made uneasy by the obvious contrast between her movements and June's. He probably hadn't even noticed the knife slipping into her right hand, down out of her sweatshirt's sleeve, she decided, seeing as he was just a little nervous, not truly frightened. Yet. She smiled maliciously. Now, she thought, now came the fun part: making him wish he'd never been born.

* * *

"Azarath…" Raven breathed in slowly. "Metrion…" The breath whooshed out through her nose as she focused on her chant. "Zinthos…" She was floating in a lotus position above her bed, trying to contact Beast Boy mentally. "Azarath…" In… "Metrion…" Out… "Zinth-" She gasped, her eyes going wide as a scream, undoubtedly Beast Boy's, snapped her out of her trance. He was seriously frightened, and in pain. But the connection had been so sudden and jarring that she was no closer to finding him. If anything, she was farther; worry had turned to full-blown terror, and she couldn't focus to find him again. She closed her eyes, chanting her mantra in vain for a few moments.

She lowered herself out of the air, climbing clumsily off of her bed and heading down the hall to find Robin. He needed to know this…somewhat meaningless fact that Beast Boy was indeed in trouble. The only reason she ambled down the hall at all, she knew, was she needed something to do, anything to take her mind off of the problem in front of her. She opened a dark portal in the door that lead to the commons room, walking through instead of waiting for the automatic doors to open before her. She opened her mouth to call his name, but stopped when her eyes fell on him.

He was sitting on the semi-circular couch –which was really much too large for their small family, much like the tower itself-, head in his hands, either wallowing in self-pity or drowning in self-hatred. Her eyes narrowed, realizing it was probably the latter. His cape cascaded over his shoulders, enveloping him in a way that was reminiscent of his former mentor. She cleared her throat, and he looked up, startled.

"Raven," he greeted, his voice a little nervous and shaky. She nodded curtly, as though she didn't know he was beating himself up over this, or at least couldn't care less about it, almost as though she thought he deserved everything he was telling himself.

"I tried to contact him mentally," she informed him. His back went a little straighter; he was all detective now, ready for business, ready for her findings.

"And?" he prompted, as though she needed prodding. She tensed her shoulders and legs, focusing on the slight discomfort to keep her voice even, trying to stop her hands from shaking. She couldn't afford to be this upset.

"He's scared and hurt." She chose her words carefully, avoiding loaded words like 'terrified' because she knew her leader didn't need her help in feeling awful about what he'd done. He seemed to believe, now, at least, that Beast Boy was truly missing, and, at the same time, blamed himself completely. While there may have been truth in the belief, it was an incredibly unhelpful state of mind for him to be in.

"Anything else?" Even with her careful wording, her news had affected the Boy Wonder negatively, which was understandable. She'd offered little information besides confirming their shared fear, shared by the whole team, that Beast Boy was indeed in trouble; she hadn't even figured out _why_ he was frightened. "A location or something?" He was near desperate for more concrete information, but that was something she just didn't have. Raven shook her head.

"No; the connection was too sudden. I merely felt what he was feeling and…" she paused, not wanting to upset Robin further by revealing what she'd heard. He waited, practically holding his breath to find out what she knew, as though it would make her tell him faster.

"And?" he prodded again, her pause too long for his nerves. She let out a sigh and steeled herself for his reaction.

"And heard him. Screaming." The color drained out of the young detective's face as he took in the sorceress' words. She was beginning to wish that she'd stayed in her room and meditated some more, that she'd done anything other than come here and crush her leader further than he'd managed to crush himself.

"I… I see." His hand went to his temple and he let out a sigh. "Well… let me know if you find anything, okay?" She nodded, enveloping herself in a dark aura and closing her eyes as she wondered what she should do. When she opened them again, she was greeted by the darkness of her room… and silence.

* * *

Angelina grinned. Now he was terrified of her. Good. The spandex-clad superhero was on his hands and knees in front of her, panting heavily. His shoulders shook with the effort of breathing, his wrists were raw from being trapped. His hair, slick with rainwater and damp with sweat hung limply downwards, swaying as he shuddered with every breath. She knelt down in front of him, bending to see the look on his face –this was one of her favorite parts-, at the same time beckoning upwards with her hand.

His head slowly rose to meet her orange-covered eyes, his movements parallel to, controlled by, her hands. His face was contorted somewhere between fury and terror as he strained to disobey her silent commands, a puppet discontent with its role but powerless to fight unless ordered so. He glared at her, face angry and pained –he really was resisting much better than anyone she'd ever toyed with-, eyes frightened and uneasy –she still had control. Sweat running down his face mingled with blood from the fun she'd had with the knife.

She stood and motioned for him to do the same, maniacal laughter slipping from her lips as he fought her power. "Go and lay back down," she ordered, waving him away. With eyes wide and silent struggles, he slowly walked back to the bed, first sitting on the edge, then swinging his legs up onto the rickety structure, and finally laying on his back, squirming minutely as he tried to break free of her influence. She stalked along behind him, grinning down at his horrified face as she stood over him. First she rebound his wrists and ankles, humming merrily to herself as he held perfectly still. Then, she pressed one finger to his lips –he cringed away from her very touch- and whispered, "You can talk now," removing her finger daintily. He gasped like she'd removed a gag, breathing so hard his whole body shook, and looked up at her.

"Y-you're… a-a… s-s-s-psychotic… b-bi-" He stopped in mid-word, groaning like he'd been stabbed, every muscle tensing. In reality, she'd clenched her fist, taking total, painful control of his body for a moment. She released her fist slowly, and he relaxed, collapsing tiredly against the bed with a sigh as she withdrew her power, handing him back his freedom, such as it was.

"I'll be back soon," she promised, blowing him a kiss as she left the little room, the door closing with a quiet click.

* * *

_There you have it. Yes, she does have a power, that wasn't just a way to describe what she was doing to him. I hope that you all still like it and that her having a power doesn't cross the infamous "Mary-Sue line." Please, oh please, let me know what you thought._

_Disclaimer: Teen Titans does not belong to me. Too bad._

_...SnowFallsSlow..._


	9. With One Stone

_Hey, I finally got another chapter finished. Hope you all like it. Oh, and thanks to _Gallaghergirl14_ for the dialogue between Robin and Cyborg. _

* * *

June grimaced, slowly making her way down the hall toward the little room. She'd found another note from Angelina on the fridge, this one proclaiming 'I broke our toy. Go fix it.' which meant that Angelina had visited their latest guest and had had her first bit of playtime. Which, on a positive note, also meant that Beast Boy probably didn't hate her any more, she decided.

"'S not my toy," she muttered under her breath. "Don't even want him to be here." She kicked at a dust bunny, reminding herself that she had yet to clean the hall, another of her chores. She fell silent, knowing that very little audible grumbling was advisable on her part, knowing that the phrase "the walls have ears" probably wasn't too far off. She cast a sideways glance at the security camera that watched the hall, watched her every move. Doing her best to ignore it, she grasped the door handle to the little circular room, letting it swing open into the deafening darkness. Without looking over at the bed and the ensnared boy on it, she flicked on the light, she'd never really liked the dark, and then, quick and quiet as she could, she tiptoed over and unplugged the speakers. That done, she couldn't put off assessing the damage any longer. She cringed slightly, afraid of what she might see, and turned.

He really looked a lot better off than she'd anticipated. He was bleeding in a few places, not hard, though, and the more superficial of the knife wounds had scabbed over, or at least started to. But, she knew from previous experience with Angelina's other victims, most of the pain the girl inflicted came from fighting her control, and thus left no visual evidence. His wide, once more frightened eyes watched her quietly, as though waiting to see if she had some form of torture for him as well. She said nothing to him for a moment, trying to decide how to approach him with her task.

Finally, she simply asked, "What hurts most?" There was a long pause as they both looked at each other, she awaiting a response, he a question that made sense.

"Huh?" He blinked and cocked his head to the side a little, apparently confused by her question. Well, she'd gladly take bewildered and curious over hateful and terrified any day. At least he didn't have that horrified please-don't-kill-me expression on his face any more.

"Which," she queried, a little more slowly and clearly, "wound hurts the most?" When he still didn't quite understand what she wanted to know, she sighed and walked to the bed, sitting down on the edge, grimacing as it sunk under her weight. He let out a surprised yelp as she lightly pressed her index finger to his forehead, just above his eyebrow, tracing the cut that was oozing the most blood, which still wasn't very much.

The skin sealed under her touch, healing until only the faintest whisper of a scar remained a split second later. "Oh," he murmured, relieved. "You're a healer." June offered a pained smile, clutching the same spot above her eyebrow, trying to cover it before Beast Boy saw that hers was a double-edged blade, so to speak. But she was too late, it seemed. "Uh… June? You're bleeding." She nodded weakly; she had a low threshold for pain.

"'M fine," she told him, cautiously removing her hand. In a few seconds, her cut would disappear, more slowly than Beast Boy's, but it would still vanish, usually without even a scar to remind her of it. "Now," she repeated, "what hurts most?"

* * *

Robin sighed, yanking his fingers through his gel-spiked black hair. His mentor had yet to get back to him, and it seemed that Cyborg wouldn't call again if he could help it. Starfire, as she had promised, had checked in fifteen minutes ago, but she hadn't had any news. He'd passed on Raven's confirmation that Beast Boy was indeed in trouble, wisely leaving out the screaming and pain. She, in turn, had agreed to pass the information on to Cyborg, and had gotten even more serious about the search efforts.

Robin tried to think about what he could be doing to help the others look for Beast Boy, he'd never forgive himself if they couldn't find him, but his mind kept wandering to exactly what the boy was going through. He gritted his teeth, attempting to think about anything else, anything other than what could have made him scream in pain. He'd call Cyborg, he decided suddenly. Maybe Cyborg had something else now, like the footprints and the shoes.

He held out his communicator, opening the channel and connecting to the metal man. "Cyborg," he asked when his teammate answered, "how's the search coming?"

Cyborg looked a little peeved, first at Robin's contact, then more so at the fact that Robin was calling for nothing more than asking about the search. "Not so good, man. I got nothing more than last time."

"Did Starfire tell you…?" Robin's voice trailed off, as though he felt the more times the worrying information was spoken aloud, the less likely they were to find their friend.

Cyborg hesitated, unsure if he was ready to go easy on his leader yet or if he wanted to force him to say it, to confirm what he'd done. "Yeah. Star called; she told me."

"All right." Robin nodded, apparently somewhat relieved to have the fact understood between them. "Keep me updated." There was a long pause; Cyborg watched as Robin struggled with some internal argument. "…And... Cyborg? Look, I'm sorry... about… before. I was-" Cyborg held up his hand, cutting off Robin's apology. His visage, which had been angry and aloof, softened. He gave a half smile of encouragement; almost the largest their situation would allow, and said, "Don't worry about it, man. Happens to the best of us." Robin nodded, and all the sudden, the two were on the same page again. "Cyborg, out."

* * *

June cringed a little; she'd gotten to the worst of Beast Boy's injuries, a nasty gash on his upper arm. Its parallel was slowly opening up along hers, starting at her shoulder and edging towards her elbow. After the first five or six cuts had been healed, Beast Boy had realized, to some extent, what her power was, what healing him was doing to her, and had been basically begging her to stop. He was squirming a little, trying to keep his injuries from her view and reach, but he was trapped and couldn't move very much.

"June, June," he pleaded, trying to get her attention. "I'm fine. You don't have to-" She pressed her hand over his mouth, trying to quiet him, and was surprised to feel her lower lip split open.

"I don't care; I'm almost done anyway. Now stop fidgeting and let me finish." She gritted her teeth against the new wave of pain as she finished the gnash on his arm and blood trickled down hers, feeling badly for snapping at the young hero. She hated that Angelina had this much power over her; hated that Angelina knew no matter how badly she injured one of the boys, June would willingly take the pain from them.

That was one reason she didn't like Angelina; the girl purposely spread pain wherever she went. June just wished she could do more to heal it.

* * *

_Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Titans, even though I've seen the whole first season._

_June is what I call a masochistic healer; any wounds she heals on someone else are inflicted on her._

_Until next time,  
...SnowFallsSlow..._


	10. Spare The Rod

_Hey, it's me again. So, I've finally gotten around to the next chapter. Also, I've had a lot of people ask me why Beast Boy doesn't just shapeshift into any of our lovely animal kingdom friends and get out of there. I answered everyone who asked, I think, but to those of you who were curious but didn't feel the need to ask, I offer my response:_

_See, the human brain is crazy. It can do amazing things to keep you safe, or as safe as you can be in any given situation._

_So, he's actually not able to shapeshift at the moment, because his mind woke his body up sooner than a regular human would have. In exchange for being awake and functioning well enough to defend himself in normal circumstances, however, the part of his mind that regulates shapeshifting is still "sleeping" and the chemicals his body produces are being used elsewhere to keep him lucid, so it may take a while for the full effect of the drug to wear off._

_Here ends my longest author's note yet. Enjoy!

* * *

_

Beast Boy sighed through his nose; he still wasn't too keen on the idea of June healing him, especially because of what it did to her, but, now that she was done and the last of the wounds had disappeared from both of their bodies, he did have to admit he was glad the pain was gone. June stood up, flipping her ponytail over her shoulder so it hung down her back, and turned away, about to leave.

"Hey, June?" he called after her. She froze, stiffening like a little girl who'd been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. A second or two passed, and she looked over her shoulder at him, confused.

"Huh?" He bit his lip, somewhat nervous of offending her, but needing to get his question out in the open; he was beginning to wonder if she was really so bad.

"Why do you work with that… that…" he paused, a disgusted look on his face, unable to come up with a suitable term for the tall, brown-haired girl, "her?" he spat finally, putting as much venom into the word as he could manage. She shivered, sitting back down.

"She's… very convincing," June murmured. "I don't have a choice, really." Beast Boy cocked his head to the side, squinting at her as though it would help him understand.

"Whaddya mean, you don't have a choice?" he asked. "You've always got a choice!" She shook her head, looking sad and a little frightened.

"No, not always." June cast a glance his way, guarded brown eyes staring at his incredulous green ones. She pulled one leg up, wrapping her arm loosely around her knee, looking oddly reminiscent of a young child hugging a stuffed animal. "She scares me," she whispered.

"She scares me, too," Beast Boy offered, though the fact hardly needed voicing. She smiled weakly, unable to say there was nothing to be afraid of, that it'd be all right, unable to comfort him in the usually accepted way.

"I…" she hesitated, glancing over at the camera he'd recently noticed watching him. "I tried to leave once," she muttered, lowering her voice further. "Had it all planned out and everything. The day before I left, I found a note on the fridge –that's how we usually talk, she rarely comes out of her room- said 'I'll find you.'" She closed her eyes and shivered, though the room was actually rather warm. "I still don't know how she knew I was going to leave…" She opened her eyes, looking at him again. "I left anyway." Her voice held the tiniest bit of pride, a tone he'd yet to hear from her. "I walked for a long time; I wanted to get as far away as possible. Don't even know where I ended up, 'cause I didn't really pay much attention to where I was goin'. That's what makes it really scary."

"Makes what scary? That you came back?" He tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice –maybe if she hadn't returned, the other girl would have stopped and none of this would have never happened- but failed; a tiny bit leaked through. So she was just scared about what the other girl would have done if she'd found her? He frowned a little. Where exactly was this anecdote going?

"Makes it scary that she found me," she corrected, brown eyes full of fear. She looked away, like the rest of the story embarrassed her. "After it got dark, I climbed a tree –I'm scared of the dark, so I couldn't keep walking- and fell asleep. When I woke up the next morning…" she stopped, her shoulders shaking a little, and hugged her knee tighter. "When I woke up the next morning," she repeated, "she'd written all over my arms in marker, 'I told you I'd find you.' I bet she'd've done it with a razor, too, but it'd've healed up before I'd ever even notice." She glanced back over at him, biting her lip.

"Oh." Now he felt bad, accusing her of returning merely because of worry, even though he hadn't voiced his accusations, because she had finished her story and he knew what had happened to her. That would scare the crap out of him, too.

"So, long story short, I came back. She was mad at me for a couple of days, she took it out on the next boy (his name, I think, was Johnny, and he had red hair and freckles), but she got over it." There was a long, awkward pause, as she twirled her ponytail around her finger and he stared at the ceiling, trying in vain to think of something to say. "If it makes you feel any better," June murmured hesitantly, staring at the concrete floor, "…I'm sorry she picked you." She looked at him once, and then darted out of the room in an exit that may have been considered dramatic, had she not stumbled on the doorjamb.

* * *

June walked to her room, larger than the one Beast Boy was trapped in and not sound proof, and collapsed onto the old couch tucked into one corner. Healing took a lot out of her, and she was permitted to rest after doing so, provided she got right back on her chores when she awoke. She propped herself up on her elbows and spat her gum into the little trash bin next to her; it had lost its strawberry taste, and, besides, she'd read somewhere that you could choke if you fell asleep with gum in your mouth. She fell back into the cushions, and, after a few minutes, was tossing and turning with nightmares.

* * *

Angelina opened the door and walked down the hall, into her surveillance room, telling it to stop recording and beginning to watch June's movements for the past few hours, fast forwarding it to catch up quickly. She smiled at all the time the girl had spent with Beast Boy; this was a mistake June made often, familiarizing herself with the boys and befriending them. It only made it harder on the girl when she found out they were dead. She let the tape run until it was almost at the end, 'til June collapsed into her bed, and then turned it off, allowing the live feed to run. She leaned over and grabbed a new piece of cinnamon gum from the counter, unwrapping the sliver and popping the gum into her mouth.

Tapping her chin in thought, she decided it was time for her to visit the shape shifter again. She was getting a little bored. She left the room, tracing her way through the hallways and running her hand along the wall, feeling the divots that spanned the spaces between the wall studs. Frowning as she came to the boy's room, Angelina realized that she couldn't feel the bass through the wall, that June had forgotten to plug the speakers back in. She opened the door to the young hero's temporary lodgings, grinning as she flicked on the light and her knife slid into her hand.

His green eyes went wide as she entered the room, horror painting his face. "Oh, God," he whispered. "Not again."

She smiled at him, raising the knife into his field of vision and giving it a little shake. "I told you I'd be back."

* * *

_Disclaimer: I don't own the show, or any characters besides Angelina and June. And the kid with the green hair from a few chapters back, I suppose, but he's not plot-important._

_I hope you liked it! Any other glaring plot holes I need to cover?_

_...SnowFallsSlow...  
_


	11. Where There's Smoke

_It's me, back from the dead. I apologize for the lack of updates; my area has had a rash of thunderstorms for the past two weeks, and I have no surge protector. Therefore, I was forced to unplug my computer, which, as you well know, hinders the typing process greatly._

_But, I have finally finished this chapter! Unfortunately, school starts up again soon, which is a bummer for those of you who really want updates._

* * *

Robin let out a relieved breath, having just finished talking with his mentor. While the man was far from friendly while in costume, Robin had to admit that he did miss him a little. "Titans, report," the masked teenager commanded, holding up his communicator.

"I still do not see any sign of our friend," Starfire said, her voice a little higher due to worry and nerves stretched tight. The lightening sky served as a background on the small screen, framing her red hair quite nicely. But the fact that the sun was coming up held none of the joy it usually did as it heralded a new dawn; instead, it served as a reminder that Beast Boy had been gone all night and the search was nearing six hours.

"Same story downtown," Cyborg summarized from his half of the communicator's screen. "No sight of him anywhere."

"And the store you found the shoes at?" Robin prompted, curious. Cyborg shook his head, his human eye closing.

"Place was abandoned. I doubt it's seen anyone but me in the last ten years." Robin took this information in stride.

"Okay," he murmured, nodding. The shop had been a stab at the dark; he hadn't been expecting much in the way of clues there. "Raven, anything new your way?" The violet-haired girl had just entered the commons, probably after some tea to help her nerves. She shook her head silently, offering no verbal explanation. "Well, I found something." His teammates, two from his communicator, one from across the room, looked at him curiously, interested in what he had to offer. "I got in touch with Batman," the word held their concentration even more, and no one interrupted as their leader continued. "He said he'll work on it, and showed me a few case files from the Jump City police's database. Four other seemingly unrelated low-profile kidnappings have occurred within the last five months."

Cyborg jumped in. "So, are there any suspects?" Robin nodded.

"The police think it's a gang, recruiting new members by force; the other victims were all around Beast Boy's age, and taken just as quietly off the streets. One was a girl, the rest were boys. The first was reported missing five months ago, the last thirty-one days ago."

Raven raised an eyebrow. "And the police haven't done anything yet because…?"

"They need solid evidence to support a warrant, and, besides, they don't want to go messing with any of the gangs for no reason." He shook his head, disgusted at the fact he had allowed such cowardice in his city. He sighed, reminding himself that Gotham was still teeming with gangs; the best superheroes could do, it seemed, was stop them from taking over the city.

"But we have no need of such things, correct?" Starfire asked, hopeful. Robin smiled a little; glad for the leniency the law provided him and his team.

"That's right, Star. The fact that they're there is reason enough for us to get involved. Cyborg, Starfire, meet us at the old business district. We've got a lead." The two nodded, disappearing for his screen. He snapped the communicator shut, turning to Raven, who took a long sip of her tea. "Raven, let's go."

* * *

Angelina smiled, taking pleasure at the hero's fear and pain. He was putting up a valiant fight; he rarely cried out, and she truly had to focus in order to make him move, something that she wasn't used to, but was ecstatic about. However, it took little will power to force him into stillness, so, for now, she followed the path of least resistance.

Beast Boy ground his teeth together as the brown-haired girl ran the knife tip down his cheek, drawing a thin line of slow-seeping crimson. He tried again to jerk away from the blade, but searing pain shot through the muscles in his neck and face, something he was beginning to associate with any attempt at motion. The blunt side of the blade trailed lazily across his exposed neck, making his instincts scream and a breath hiss out from between his clenched teeth.

"You won't get any money, you know," he seethed, addressing something that had been bothering him. "I haven't got any, and I doubt the others do." She giggled, the harmless noise contrasting the pain in his side as she sheathed her knife between his ribs. His back arched and he gave a sharp cry, the pain in his side for the moment eclipsing the throbbing across the muscles that had moved. He groaned, lying back down, as she eased it back out, examining the patterns of trickling blood. His eyes were closed tight, his breathing ragged as he silently prayed she hadn't struck anything vital and that she wouldn't try that again any time soon.

"You play video games, right?" she asked offhandedly, her finger tracing the contours of his chest made easily visible by his skin-tight spandex; he squirmed at her touch, trying to pull his body away from her hand. His eyes opened.

"Uh…yeah." That was a weird question, but answering kept his mind off of how wrong it felt to have her touching him, and how she seemed to thrive on his discomfort. She returned her attention to her bloody knife, removing her hand from his body and examining the blade from various angles.

"Do you get money for playing them?" He could imagine her eyes focusing on his face; see the shift in focus on the rest of her facial muscles as she peered beyond the knife at him, her tone charged with morbid curiosity.

"No." He raised an eyebrow, wary. Where was this going? "'Course not."

"Then why do you?" she asked, tapping the blunt edge of the blade on her pursed lips, acting as though she were bewildered.

"It's fun," he answered, trying to ignore the churning in his stomach at his blood staining her lips red. She scoffed, feigning disgust.

"You mean to tell me that you get enjoyment out of brutally murdering scores of virtually defenseless pawns?"

"No!" he said, frowning, appalled at the description of his beloved video games. His eyes went wide as the knife bit into his left thigh. A groan strained through gritted teeth as she inched it in further, twisting it carefully before yanking it back out. She leaned close, bringing her tainted lips inches from his delicately pointed ear.

"Oh," she murmured, her breath hot on his neck, "and here I thought we'd found something in common."

* * *

_Disclaimer: Teen Titans does not belong to me, though I have now seen the entire first season and am working on the second._

_I hope you enjoyed!_

_...SnowFallsSlow...  
_


	12. Measure Twice

_Hello there. I've finished another chapter. :) _

_This one's a little shorter than they've been as of late, but if I'd made it any longer, I wouldn't have given this bit of the plot the time it needs to work. That sentence will make more sense in a chapter or two. :)_

_And if you're needing something to read, as proof of my finishing the second season, I've written a short few paragraphs on Terra. It's called _Free_. Go check it out!_

* * *

Cyborg stood silently, arms crossed over his chest as he and Starfire waited in the early morning light. She was floating to his left, red hair a little wind-whipped and eyes not quite as wide as usual. She was just as quiet as he was, tired but alert, waiting on their leader. The dark-haired boy and Raven were on their way, and would likely be along shortly. A quiet swish of Raven's black magic and the amazingly muffled metallic clang of Robin's shoes stifling the violet-haired girl's shuffling footsteps announced their arrival and signaled their approach. They came into view quickly, walking out from behind a warehouse, looking around for Starfire and himself. He and Raven made eye contact –he'd have done so with Robin too, but the mask prevented those sorts of things- and she nodded at him, raising her feet off the ground a little and hovering behind Robin.

"So, where we headed, Rob?" Cyborg asked, eager to jump on this lead. Robin pointed, nodding his head in the direction he'd indicated.

"It's a warehouse over there, a big one that's been refurbished. Apparently," Robin said, his voice tinged with irritation at the local enforcements, the fresh emotion overriding the half-day-long worry, "the location's well-known, but the cops don't want to go messing with any of our resident gangs until someone important gets kidnapped."

"So, Beast Boy's not important?" Raven asked, cocking an eyebrow.

"Nope, their definition of important seems to apply to the wealthy voters and their various children." Robin made a disgusted noise, and the others murmured their agreement. The four, each feeling oddly alone without their little green tagalong, made their way to the renovated warehouse, Robin leading the way.

It came into view, a few hundred yards away, easily identified by the sea of thugs surrounding it. The incomplete team surveyed the group silently, hiding themselves easily; Raven teleporting to a roof nearby, Starfire flying to another, Robin disappearing into the shadows in a way reminiscent of his former mentor, and Cyborg crouching by a pile of crates and tires. "Y'all ready?" Cyborg asked quietly, looking around at his friends. His voice whispered out from the communicators each carried on their person; each of his friends nodded.

* * *

Beast Boy let out another silent gasp as the knife found a spot it had yet to caress. The psycho girl let him go, giggling again, a sound that would probably haunt his nightmares for the rest of his life. His wildly spinning mind grasped one word: torture. Worse than the repeated knife wounds was the anticipation of the next blow. He was no longer tethered to the bed, but wished he were. She'd changed her game to Cat and Mouse, and he did not like the role he played. He tried to hide, behind the speakers, under the bed, but she always found him, cheating, usually, forcing him to cry out, call out, or freeze as she came near.

Most of the pounding music had stopped, the speakers now only playing one looping track: fight music from a video game he was sure he'd played, or maybe from a movie he'd seen. He couldn't find the plug feeding juice to the speakers; he was too disoriented in the ill-lit circular room. He crouched behind another stack of speakers, throwing his hands protectively over his head. His heart was pounding in his ears, drying out his mouth and frenzying his senses.

Once more, he could no longer speak; she'd silenced him, and now any attempt at speech that wasn't extracted by her power burned his throat and tongue like fire. He'd been in battles before, been frightened and, for lack of a better word, hunted, but this… he wouldn't wish this on anyone, not even Slade. This was beyond terror, and the sadist had him feeling more hunted than he ever had.

"Found you." The whisper came from above him, making him jump and eliciting a yelp that died with fire in his throat. He made to dart away, but she caught him by the wrist, yanking him into the open with surprising strength. He landed hard on his back, and she planted a hand on his shoulder, pinning him. The knife flashed in the dim light, and he crossed his arms over his face, trying futilely to protect himself. The contact never came.

A loud crash thudded from far away, muffled by the room's walls. The girl froze, looking up, toward the sound. Beast Boy didn't move, eyes locked on the knife dangling inches from his face. "What was that?" she asked the air, pupils narrowing. She stood, and was halfway to the door when she looked back at him.

Angelina smiled. "Come here." Beast Boy, who had been almost behind the speakers again, froze in mid-step, turning about and facing her. Terror was splashed across his face, dripping from his visage like the sweat that ran down his tired, bleeding body. He was fighting every slow step forward, silently struggling and groaning quietly at the pain he was causing himself. She gestured with her left hand and he stumbled closer, coming to a halt a foot and a half away. His eyes darted from her face to his raising hand, held flat to accept something from her. She smiled sweetly, placing the knife handle into his waiting hand and coiling his fingers around it. "You'll have to play by yourself until I come back. Keep the game going." His eyes went wide as he figured out what she was forcing him to do. He shook his head a little, tears gathering in his pleading, desperate eyes. Then, as though it had a will of its own –her will- his hand plunged the knife into his thigh, ripping it back out moments later. It went after his other arm next, and he yelped, trying to evade his own attacks.

Smiling to herself, Angelina left to go see what the ruckus was about.

* * *

Robin sent another thug careening into a wall by setting off an explosion that sent him stumbling blindly backwards. A wooden crate soared over his head, propelled by Starfire's inhuman strength. Cyborg let out a battle cry and shot off his sonic cannon, rendering five men unconscious and slightly smoldering. Raven chanted her mantra quietly at first, shouting the last syllable. She raised a swarm of tires into the air and rained them down onto the crooks still standing, leaving them immobile. The way cleared, the four of them went crashing through the tall garage door that made up a fourth of the warehouse wall, ready for more combat.

* * *

_Disclaimer: Don't own, don't ask. _

_Oops... a tad of a cliffhanger in this one._

_...SnowFallsSlow...  
_


	13. Nothing Ventured

_Wow, another chapter already!_

_Not that you necessarily care, but I got to watch _House_ with my family today. We rented it on DVD. Don't expect any FanFiction in that category, though, I don't have the kind of wit that is required for a _House_ writer._

* * *

Robin had a gang member pinned to the wall, finally releasing some pent-up anger at the rash of events that had occurred as of late. The rest had been taken care of –most lay tied up, some to each other, some by themselves, still others suspended from the high ceiling. A few had fled, but the Titans were too focused to chase after them. The frightened young man Robin had chosen to interrogate was stuttering so badly that his answers were almost useless; he was apparently new to the gang, and hadn't been told of the Titans' divide and conquer tactics, habit of interfering with business as usual, and low tolerance for the inept.

"I'm going to ask you one last time," Robin growled. "The kids; where are they?" The man, his arms effectively pinned, nodded his head vaguely to his left, panicky brown eyes not leaving Robin's face for a second.

"Th-they're ov-ov-over th-there." Robin glanced over his shoulder, and, upon seeing a doorway, banged the back of man's head against the wall, knocking him unconscious. He released his grip, letting the man slump to the ground.

"Titans," the black-haired leader called, heading to where the man had indicated, without looking back, "let's go."

* * *

Angelina stalked silently through the corridors that interlaced the old warehouse, running her hand along the wall. The loud noise of a splintering crate was beyond unnerving, though she doubted that her hideout had been found. And, yet, if it had, she would be even more ecstatic than she was at Beast Boy's struggles; being the bad guy was no fun if the heroes couldn't keep up with you. She'd gotten a little too good at her hobby as of late, and the police hardly posed a threat; there was little thrill any more. The last time the police had even come close to catching her was four, no, five boys ago, with some whiny brat from the upper end of society. Since then, she'd moved to a bigger city, with more victims, and, she hoped, a better police force.

And still, she'd made two and three boys disappear, and not even the slightest whiff of any of the stories had made it into the news, all leads pathetic and hardly worth investigating. She was still pouting about that. Which was why she'd upped the ante, going after the youngest member of the practically worshiped super hero team. In all honest truth, she decided as she continued to meander through the halls, hardly in a hurry, she'd hoped that catching and keeping the boy hero would have been more difficult. Maybe the next city they tried would be better… Metropolis, perhaps, tangoing with Superman would be a blast, though, in thinking about it, he seemed to have a thing for rescuing Lois Lane, and Angelina had no interest in kidnapping women. She wrinkled her nose at the thought, the facial distortion causing her sunglasses to rise a little.

Possibly Gotham City, then? The resident hero of that place, Batman, was well known for his detective work. Matching wits with him might be just what she was looking for, and, besides, Arkham Asylum was famous in the underworld for being a joke that the police had mistakenly put their faith into. She nodded to herself, smiling at the idea. She'd begin plans as soon as her current tenant vacated the premises.

* * *

Cyborg let loose a powerful cannon blast, obliterating the door. Compared to the high, open ceiling that hung over the main floor and catwalk of the larger part of the warehouse, this storage room was almost suffocatingly small. The four heroes leaked into the room, eyes on the three boys huddled on the floor. Batman had been correct; they each appeared about Beast Boy's age, give or take a year. The one who looked the youngest, a disheveled redheaded boy with a torn polo on, was clutching the eldest, a somber blonde with dark, distrustful eyes. The redhead was grasping the blonde's shirt, pressing his face into it as though watching a horror movie for the first time and scared by what was happening onscreen.

The third boy was sitting close to them, but not touching either. Intelligent eyes appraised the Titans each in turn, half hidden behind greasy brown hair. His once-white wife beater was torn in two spots and covered by a navy jacket with no buttons or zipper.

"Is he… are they back yet?" whimpered the redhead, his voice muffled by shirt. The boy with brown hair looked over at the other two.

"Nope. It's the Titans."

The redhead pulled away from the blonde, angry green eyes focused on the brown-haired boy. "That's not funny, Zach!" he spat, fury shaking his voice. The blonde boy, apparently unwilling to have his shirt apprehended again, placed his left hand on the young boy's head, gently turning his visage towards the Titans. His eyes went wide and his jaw dropped. He was on his feet in an instant, darting across the room and wrapping his arms around Raven as he babbled his thanks. Raven looked uncomfortable, holding her arms away from her body to avoid touching the boy any more than necessary.

Cyborg looked over at the older two boys, who were far more composed and wary. The blond had pulled Zach to his feet, and the two of them stood, watching. "There are two more of you, right?" Cyborg asked, directing his question at the oldest. The boy cocked his head to the side.

"There's another boy, if that's whatcha mean." Cyborg nodded.

"But, according to the reports, there was a girl too… right…?" His voice trailed off at the looks on the faces of the three captives. The blonde's was angry, the redhead's hurt, and Zach's held pure disgust.

"He means J.," Zach said, although seemingly unnecessarily. His lip curled in revulsion, the blonde elaborated.

"J. was the fourth ta get taken," he explained. "She took hardly any convincin' ta join their gang. She's… on their side." The redhead sniffled, clutching Raven tighter. "Get offa her, Greg," the blonde said with the air of a scolding older brother. Greg pulled away from Raven, swiping his arm across his nose and thrusting his hands into his pockets.

"Sorry, Matt." Matt rolled his eyes, apparently irritated.

"An' quit apologizing all the time, ya wuss."

"Sorry, Matt." Zach snickered a little, but Matt shot him an irate look and he stopped. Robin watched silently, growing increasingly aggravated with the three of them.

"So, where are the other two? The boy and this… Jay," the masked leader asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"She… took him…" Greg murmured.

* * *

_Ooo, what could this mean? Took him where? And just who is "he," anyway?_

_Disclaimer: So not mine._

_Sorry about the smattering of OCs there, everyone. I promise, none of them have any superpowers.  
_

_...SnowFallsSlow...  
_


	14. When The Cat's Away

_Okay, the site was totally glitching, so if you haven't read chapter 12, you shouldn't be here. In fact, to be safe, you might want to go back one chapter and check that you have read _Nothing Ventured_. Thanks!_

* * *

"This Jay has taken him?" Starfire asked, eyes glowing. "We must find her!" Her feet rose off the floor, and she was about to take off, hands aglow, when an amused voice interrupted her moment of righteous fury.

"Uh, do you even know where you're going?" Zach asked, barely restraining a chuckle. Starfire thought for a moment, index finger tapping her pursed lips.

"No. I do not," she decided finally, her feet daintily hitting the ground. "Perhaps one of you would be willing to offer us direction?" Greg darted behind Matt, his red hair sticking out from the solemn boy's side, easily visible as he raised his arms in surprise and tried to peer behind himself.

"Calm down, Greg!" Matt exclaimed, attempting to peel the smaller boy off with little avail. Once Greg had been shoved away, he came stumbling back and wrapped around Matt's waist tighter, linking his arms together and burying his face in the older boy's shirt again. His breathing was quick and irregular, and his slim shoulders shook as though he was crying. Matt made another attempt to pry himself free, but Greg let out a little yelp and Matt gave up, allowing the young boy to hug him.

"I-don't-wanna-go-back!" Greg sobbed, his voice muffled by plaid cloth as he gasped for breath between each word.

"I know. Calm down, they're not gonna make ya." Matt rolled his eyes and sighed through his nose, awkwardly patting the young boy's shoulder. It wasn't his fault he was frightened.

Zach scoffed, clearly unimpressed at Greg's childish behavior. He shook his head, staring at the floor, then looked back up, making eye contact with Matt. "I'll show 'em the way." He raised his hand, as though volunteering an answer in a classroom, and waved it a little, the motion weary.

* * *

Silently, Angelina slipped out the back door. Her soundless footsteps made no echo through the early morning air. She squinted in the sunlight, fighting the urge to go back inside; if she waited and had June handle this, things might not work out so well. Humming tunelessly, she walked around the outside of the building, trailing her hand behind her. She peered around the corner, checking for any intruders before continuing down that wall. No one was behind the building, or on the right side. Even the front was vacant, meaning that the sound had originated from the left side of the building, where the large, rusted garage door was. Not changing her pace in the slightest, Angelina ambled towards her destination.

* * *

Beast Boy let out another pained breath, the closest he could get to screaming at the moment, the burning ache in his throat still aggravated by any attempt at speech, coherent or not. He couldn't drop the knife –he'd tried to several times. He grabbed his wrist, attempting to pin his own arm to the ground, only to have it jerk free and skim his cheek with the bloodied blade. A breath seethed between clenched teeth and he reeled back, hand on the new wound. His eyes when wide and he let out a strangled groan, glancing downward in horror at his knife-wielding hand. The handle of the blade, clutched by his own gloved hand, was protruding from his stomach.

* * *

Zach paused for a moment, looking down the hallway. No one was there; it seemed as though most of the men left to guard the halls had either fled or already tangoed with the Titans. He was none too keen about heading back to this room, where he and the other three boys had been forcibly dragged every other day since each of their kidnappings, (nor was the idea of voluntarily meeting up with J. something that made him feel like jumping for joy) but he wasn't about to start bawling like that little redheaded wuss, Greg. He glanced back at the Titans, who were following him so stealthily that he was almost uncertain if they were there.

"This way," he murmured, feeling odd being the only one making any noise. He started down this hall, the third or fourth of such turns he'd led them through. The only option besides wussing out was helping out, so he had. _Besides,_ he thought to himself, tossing an unnecessary glance over his shoulder to enjoy the view, _that redhead chick is _hot.

* * *

Angelina had reached the left side of the building –it was quite a hike, and she was wishing that she'd started on that side in the first place. She looked about curiously, hoping to see some evidence that her security had been breeched, that she'd been found out, that this city had better protectors than the last she'd resided in. The only damage was a splintered crate –which, if she remembered correctly, had been teetering rather haphazardly to begin with- that had fallen off a stack of other crates and a few tires. Frowning slightly, she tapped her chin. Something had to have knocked the crate over: she'd been living here for the past few months, and it hadn't fallen in all that time. She walked over to the largest chunk of crate left and lifted it gingerly, careful not to get any splinters.

A cat let out a startled meow, skittering away. Its fur was dusty and had a few small chunks of wood sticking in it; so that was what had done the crate in. It cast an angry look back at her, letting out a threatening hiss before scampering out of sight. Angelina shrugged and turned around, disappointed at the fact it had only been a mangy cat, eager to return to her game.

* * *

Cyborg readied his cannon as the brown-haired boy stepped aside, hands deep in his pockets, but Robin beat him to it, casting a "Robin scowl" in the boy's direction. Cyborg smirked a little –maybe the Boy Wonder had noticed the looks that the civilian boy had been throwing Starfire. He lowered his arm, trusting that his leader could handle a simple door on his own.

The door gave way to Robin's metal-toed shoe almost too easily, as though old and tired of keeping its secrets. The karate yell he'd let out on instinct ended, leaving the thud of the door on smooth concrete to echo and fade into silence. Robin's jaw dropped, and he heard the surprised gasps of the other Titans behind him. No… it couldn't be…

* * *

_Disclaimer: Not mine._

_Jasperslilred, I'll bet you're hating me right now. :) I promise, everyone, the next chapter will be really good.  
_

_...SnowFallsSlow...  
_


	15. All That Glitters

_And here it is, the chapter you've all been waiting for!_

_Updates may get a little slower, I warn you, because extra curricular activities are starting up in full swing at my school.  
_

* * *

Angelina pushed the door open quietly, wondering how her newest plaything had fared in her absence. Beast Boy was crouched against the far wall, his back pressed firmly against it, struggling with his own right hand. The dastardly appendage appeared to be attempting to slit his throat, although she was a little too far away to be able to tell for sure. The intense look on his face made giggles rise in her throat. He had both eyes focused on the blade and jaw set in an uncharacteristic grimace, lips pulled slightly apart as he strained not to take his own life. He lost his concentration at her laughter; his eyes darting over to her and mouth falling open.

His hand gained the upper hand, and she watched the length of the blade bite into flesh. His eyes went wide and hers narrowed. "Now, that's quite enough." He froze and so did his hand. For almost a full thirty seconds, he scarcely breathed, his right hand awaiting the order to finish the job, he hoping beyond all hope that she'd call off the attack. After what felt like an eternity, she spoke again. "I want to play." She raised her left hand and drew it slowly to her right side, then flicked it away from her body in a sudden movement. Beast Boy's right arm, following her movements without his consent, tossed the knife away, far from his reach.

His breath caught in his throat as she stepped closer, making her grin. She calmly motioned upward with her hand and he rose to his feet, eyes closed in silent acceptance of the pain it caused him to move after all he'd done to himself. He leaned heavily on a stack of speakers to his left, unable to stand without some form of assistance. She clicked her tongue, marveling over each self-inflicted wound, sometimes poking and prodding at the sorest looking spots, causing him to recoil with a strangled moan of pain, clenching his hands and letting his fingers scrape across the plastic, muscles going rigid. He kept his eyes closed, not wanting to see the delight written so plainly across her face.

Finally through with her examination, she sighed, crossing her arms and pouting. "I suppose you ought to go and sit down; there's not much more I can do to you right now without putting an end to my fun." Her voice was caught between awe at his work and disappointment. He opened one eye, peering over at her hopefully. "I'll send June along shortly." The other eye opened as well, and he stared at her, surprise written clearly across his face. She waved her hand, sending him stumbling and limping forward, towards the bed. He collapsed onto it without complaint, closing both eyes again and trying to focus on something other than pain.

The door began to swing closed, but stopped, and she poked her head back into the room. "Oh, and talk, if you really want to." Flat on his back, he raised his head a little, turning back to look at her, and swore weakly, then let himself crumple again.

* * *

Robin could not believe the sight before him; it wasn't possible. A girl, presumably the infamous "Jay," held an iron in one hand, one end of which was red-hot. A young man, barely twenty, held defenseless the fourth boy, who had been stripped of his shirt and was being approached with the iron, about to be prodded, and not for the first time, if the burns across his stomach were any indicator. The three were frozen in place, startled into stillness by the abrupt entry of the Titans. The man and the girl had the "deer-in-the-headlights" look, the boy's face held the same reserved hopefulness that Matt's had. This was definitely the last boy, the one of four that had been missing.

But, the catch was, _it wasn't Beast Boy. _Light brown hair fell across a shiner and a blue-green eye, perfectly straight teeth filled a mouth hanging open in surprise, and dirty, pale skin seemed to glow in the weak lighting. Robin and the other Titans stood staring, absolutely shocked. If this wasn't Beast Boy, then… now what?

The girl was the first to move and break the spell, dropping the iron and tearing off toward the door, the man in hot pursuit. Neither made it, though, because Raven's black energy engulfed them, dragging them toward her.

"We've rescued the other two, and he" -she jerked her head toward Zach- "he's with us, too. If there are any others, tell us now or else…" Her voice was so low and threatening, eyes glowing white and small frame towering above the two kidnappers, that she didn't need to finish her statement. But, Raven wasn't one to leave things to chance. "Jail will be the _least_ of your worries."

The girl shook her head rapidly, and the man copied her motions. "No, th-there's no one else!" the girl yelped as Raven drew closer. Robin nodded.

"She's telling the truth." Beast Boy was supposed to be the fourth boy, he fit the description –right age, and off by himself at the time-, and yet, this other boy was here. "There have only been five kidnappings, and she's one of them." So, where was Beast Boy? The rest of the team seemed to echo this question, each in their own way. Cyborg was looking around, scanning the walls of the warehouse, searching for Beast Boy's heat signature, and, Robin was certain, coming up empty. Starfire, who had been floating along rather merrily at the prospect of finding their friend, was grounded, her right arm latched to her left elbow, looking more lost than he'd ever seen her. Raven was silent, which was a dangerous situation for those unfortunate crooks that were supposed to have been the ones to reunite them with the changeling boy. She was fuming, probably, at the time they'd wasted, and wondering what they were going to do next. Robin was, for sure.

* * *

June woke with a start, unable to recall dosing off. She was in the kitchen, at the table… how had she gotten there? She looked around, confused, disoriented, and saw a note clipped to the refrigerator. Standing up and stretching, she stifled a yawn and went to read it. "_Your newest friend_…" June frowned at the jab as she read the note aloud, her voice tired, knowing that Angelina was using the term as such. "Jeeze, poor guy. She's gone back already? Anyways… _friend seems to have hurt himself. Go help him._" June ran her fingers through her hair, confused at the wording. Hurt himself? Angelina always took credit for the other boys' wounds… what made this time different? She set the note down, and then realized her thumb had been covering up a final word from Angelina: "_Hurry._ Oh sh-" Eyes wide, June tossed the note aside and tore off in the direction of the room. Angelina NEVER told her to hurry unless it was an emergency, like the current boy might die sooner than Angelina wanted. That meant Beast Boy was in serious trouble.

* * *

_So, how many of you saw THAT coming?_

_Disclaimer: The Teen Titans television show does not belong to me. I'm working on getting around to watching the third season..._

_...SnowFallsSlow...  
_


	16. A Bird In The Hand

_Hey, everyone, I'm back. Seeing as I finished my homework sooner than I expected, I rewarded myself with a little free writing time._

_Hope you enjoy the product of my in-class work time today!  
_

* * *

Beast Boy flinched as the door banged open loudly. He fought the ache and pain in his muscles, trying to raise his head, but gave up. "Beast Boy?" June's voice held more than just an undertone of panic as she came crashing into the little room, flicking the light on. He let out a groan, unwilling to focus long enough to form words, let alone a reply. Rapid footsteps pattered towards him, and the mattress springs squeaked in protest as she leaned over him. She was freaking out, swearing under her breath and calling curses down on someone named Angelina. Her hands were fluttering uselessly as her horrified brown eyes darted from wound to wound. Suddenly, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, as she had done in the alley. Somewhat calmed, she opened her eyes again, examining him with a more analytical eye. Recoiling in apparent squeamishness, she placed her fingers on his worst injury, the rather deep gouge in his stomach, and her healing flowed into his body. He didn't even ask her to stop, in too much pain to argue with her.

Unable to stop herself, June let out a pained cry as the wound opened in her own stomach, blood leaking out and staining her shirt. She put her knuckle into her mouth, biting down hard to cope with the pain. Mere moments after, both of their stomachs were unbroken again, his badly scarred, hers unmarred. She smiled weakly at him, pressing her fingers to the slit on his cheek. "Hi," she mumbled. His lips twitched into a fainter smile, then fell back into a pained grimace. "Thought you were dead," she informed him, the note of panic quieting.

"You weren't the only one," he slurred, words too difficult to form coherently. He closed his eyes, trying to focus on the warmth from her healing hands instead of the pain that consumed the rest of his body. She breathed in sharply just as her fingers touched the gash in his thigh, and he desperately wished that he weren't causing her so much pain.

* * *

Robin paced the length of the commons room, back at Titans Tower, waiting for Batman to call him back. The police had been called to the warehouse, although Starfire and Cyborg had insisted on taking the four boys –Matt, Greg, Zach, and Logan- to the station themselves, to save them from the ride in a police car. "Jay," or J., whose real name was Jessica, was also packed into the T-car. The last thing they needed was for the girl to tell the police that she was "one of the kids that got kidnapped," and be let go because she had indeed been reported missing. She was not getting out of jail if they could help it.

Raven had teleported the two of them back to the tower and then retreated to her room, hell-bent on meditation and getting closer to finding out where Beast Boy was. Robin had called Bruce, through the landline this time, in hopes of getting through with greater ease, and had gotten Alfred Pennyworth, the butler, because Bruce still wasn't home. He'd been less than cordial with his old friend, but Alfred understood the situation and would likely not hold a serious grudge. The butler had promised that Bruce would call the minute he returned, and Robin believed him.

The phone rang, startling Robin for a second or two. Speak of the devil; Bruce was on the other end of the line. Robin wasted no time with pleasantries.

"The lead was a dead end."

"What happened?" Bruce asked, all business.

"It was a kidnapping ring, alright, but Beast Boy wasn't there." Robin could practically hear the gears turning in Bruce's mind as he processed the information. The man let out a sigh.

"I'm heading to the computer; tell me again everything you've found."

Running his fingers through his hair, Robin took a deep breath and began. "Cyborg found Beast Boy's footprints in the mud along the sidewalk. We just had another light shower, so the mud itself isn't unusual." Bruce made a noise, something between "okay" and "mm-hmm," letting Robin know he was still listening. "However, the tracks were too deep. Beast Boy would have had to weigh almost twice what he does in order to have made them. So, either he was carrying someone about his size…"

"Or someone about his size was carrying him," Bruce finished. Robin nodded, though his mentor couldn't see him.

"Right. And, that's more likely, because Cyborg did some digging and found that the depth of the footprints wasn't the only thing that was off."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. With the set that he found, there was too much of an inward angle, and the strides were too long." Robin could hear fingers tapping as Bruce pondered this.

"So, someone kidnapped Beast Boy and stole his shoes?" Robin shook his head.

"No; we found the shoes." There was a creak on the other end of the phone, as though Bruce had sat upright in his chair very suddenly, intrigued.

"When?"

"Uh…" Robin wracked his brain, trying to recall when exactly the find had occurred. "A little while before I called you, I guess. Why?" Bruce let out a frustrated sigh, as though Robin was insisting the sky was purple.

"Why didn't you tell me about this sooner? Where did you find the shoes?" Thoroughly lost, but trusting his mentor –the detective had solved more cases than Sherlock Holmes, and his hunches usually proved correct- Robin responded as best he could.

"A closed shop in the residential district." The query why was again on his tongue, but Bruce cut him off.

"Abandoned?" Robin nodded, muttering sounds of confirmation, curious as to what the man had come up with. "For how long?"

"Cyborg said it looked like a couple of years since anyone had been there."

"And there was no note? Fingerprints? Anything?" Bruce was on a roll now, his tone intense and questions flying.

"Nothing," Robin told him. "Just the shoes and his belt and communicator." The man on the other end of the line let out a curse.

"Robin, this just got much, much worse than a missing teammate."

* * *

June looked at Beast Boy's unconscious form silently, wishing she could sleep so peacefully. She was glad for his slumber; he would be better off sleeping for a few hours while his body adjusted to the endorphins her powers had added to his system, and, on a more selfish note, she would have found it difficult to tether him to the bed again while he was conscious. His sleeping form offered no resistance as she cuffed his wrists and ankles to the bed, all the while wistfully wishing that none of this had ever happened. Sniffling a little, she turned to go, then pause, face set in an uncharacteristic grimace and fists clenched. She looked over her shoulder at the young hero and whispered, "I'll get you out of here, I promise." And with that thought set firmly in her mind, June left the little room, plotting on how she could reach the Titans.

* * *

_Disclaimer: Not mine._

_A little too much Batman in this chapter for a Teen Titans story. Did he seem in character?  
_

_...SnowFallsSlow..._


	17. Tell No Tales

_Guess what? I'm finally back! Here's my next chapter. Seeing as I got a couple of "Go, June!" reviews, I added a bit more of her in there._

_Enjoy!  
_

* * *

June had no idea where she would go to find the Titans. Heading straight to the Tower would NOT be helpful, first because their security system was crazy –Angelina had an obsession with security systems, and had spent extensive time researching theirs- and second because she had no idea how to get there. She stood in her room, digging around for a clean shirt to wear. Blood didn't go well with her eyes. She laughed a little at recalling the futile joke, something Johnny had said back when he was in Beast Boy's position. She briefly considered putting up flyers to get the Titans' attention, but dismissed it; she hadn't the time or money for that, and Angelina would find out quicker than the Titans would. Speaking of…

"We're out of milk!" June hollered, giving herself a reason to leave the warehouse. She flashed a ten at the security camera, as though proving her objective. She waited for a response, for Angelina to come out and stop her, accusing her of her plots, but nothing happened. Thrusting her hands into her pockets, she headed out into the abandoned warehouse district.

* * *

"Worse?" Robin asked, pressing the phone to his ear more firmly as though that would help him understand. "What do you mean worse?" Bruce scoffed.

"I mean that everything's fine, Robin. What the hell do you think I mean?" Robin clenched his teeth, not wanting to snap at the man who seemed to have the answers he was looking for.

"How _much_ worse is "worse?""

The man on the other end blew out a sigh. "Get to your computer, I'm sending you some files." Robin did as bid, ambling quickly towards the large screen. "The stolen shoes left in front of an abandoned shop match the MO of a serial killer that's at large and has been for the past two and a half years."

"There's a guy running around who takes people's shoes and then kills them?" That was a little wacky, even for the villains he'd faced, and skepticism helped him ignore the looming fact that he'd chased Beast Boy into the arms of a serial killer. Rapid clicks echoed on the other end of the line; Bruce was in the Batcave, sending out files from his super computer.

"No," Bruce corrected, the note of frustration creeping back into his voice. "There is a young woman who kidnaps teenage boys, wears their shoes to hide the scene of the crime, and then leaves the shoes in front of long-abandoned buildings." His voice was clipped, attention focused on the screen in front of him. "She doesn't want anyone else to take credit for her killings by leaving the only evidence in front of an inhabited building. She also doesn't leave any notes, so she's not doing this for revenge or money, and… well, to be honest, Robin, no one's ever caught her, and nobody she takes is ever seen again. Alive, that is." Robin pretended not to hear, scrolling through the pages Bruce had sent him.

Twenty-six profiles showed themselves, each with a different picture. Few were professional, most looked like they had been taken by a camera phone or cheap digital camera. Some were grainy, others blurry, still others off-center. Names were displayed by the pictures, and ages beneath the names. Most were about Beast Boy's age, the youngest twelve and six months at time of capture, the oldest fifteen. Each had a date of capture, and most had the words "DEATH CONFIRMED" stamped across them in red. Over half of them had a short bio, but Robin didn't waste his time with that.

The snapshot of the paper that came up next was what he was interested in. It was a comparison of all the victims, drawing together all of the similarities they had. There was a great deal of text; unfortunately, it seemed as though most of it had been crossed out. Caucasian had been stricken, and teenaged had two or three exceptions. There was no correlation between their heights or hair color, eyes or skin. He scanned the paper, heart sinking more with every word. The only thing that each of the victims had in common was the fact that they were male. She had no other criteria, it seemed. They were almost always alone, with a few exceptions were witnesses claimed that "some hot girl" crashed their party and lured the victim away. He'd been hoping for some standard that would count Beast Boy out, that would prove he hadn't been taken by a serial killer. Frustrated, Robin flipped to the next file, and then wished he hadn't.

The following pictures were the reason Bruce had tagged the words "Alive, that is," to the end of his sentence. The first was the youngest boy, strung up by his ankles and hanging in front of a police station. The next picture was a young man's body crammed into a car trunk; the car's body had been scorched. Several of them, Robin noticed as he flipped through them quickly, involved a body somehow displayed in front of a police station, one was sprawled out on the front steps, another sitting propped up against the wall, a third cuffed to a police car, as though the kidnapper was gloating. None of them wore any shoes or socks. One particularly disturbing shot was of a boy probably Beast Boy's age, with bloodied red hair and freckles, hanging by his wrists in front of a middle school. His face and arms were marred and scarred, words, insults etched into his flesh with a blade and left to heal. His shirt was hanging open, revealing, written in red, the words "With love for June."

* * *

June looked around, hands thrust deep in her pockets. She didn't like the looks she was getting from the grungy man that was leaning against the building across the street; pulling her hands out of her pockets to hug herself, she wished she'd worn a jacket. She was standing in the mildly busy part of town, watching the pedestrians go by, wondering if any of them realized their youngest hero's fate was so uncertain, his life balanced precariously on the blade of a razor. She started walking again, wondering how to get the Titans' attention without getting arrested. She considered breaking a store window and hanging around until the cops showed up, but that would likely get her arrested; Beast Boy would die for sure, and die a death as slow and painful as Angelina could make it.

Riling up a citizen would have the same problems, she assumed, and she was at a loss for anything else she could do. Even lying in wait in a dark alley after pulling off either minor crime had the worse problem of actually fighting one of the Titans, something she'd rather not do. A shadow passed over her, and she looked up, seeing the redheaded alien girl, Novaflames or something, flying about in the air, scanning the streets below. She smiled. That gave her an idea.

* * *

_Remember June telling Beast Boy about Angelina taking out her anger on a boy named Johnny? That's the boy from the middle school. Just a little character background that's sort of unimportant._

_Disclaimer: Not mine. :P_

_...SnowFallsSlow... _


	18. Mightier Than The Sword

_Here we have it: another chapter of _Confiscated_! Sorry about the long wait; I've got a slew of excuses, but, all that really matters is that I finally got another chapter up. Please, enjoy!_

* * *

The string of bells above her head rang happily as June pushed the door open, clattering against the thin pane of glass. She looked around nervously, feeling out of place in such a cheery little store, like she was staining the innocent place with her very presence. She felt a very strong urge to simply leave the place; unfortunately, however, she needed a pen and some paper. This local stationary store seemed like the perfect place for the job. Humming a song she'd never heard before, she started down the aisles, looking for a small, cheap pack of paper and another of pens. She saw several very tempting pads of stationary, with little kittens playing or ribbons winding down the margins, and glittery pencils and calligraphy pens that beckoned enticingly, but knew she shouldn't get them. Somewhere deep down, she knew the reason was that she felt pretty things were for good girls, not killers and kidnappers.

After a few moments of searching, she found a plain pack of blue paper and some cheap black pens. Items in hand, she tiptoed to the front of the store, clearing her throat quietly to catch the young clerk's attention. "Just these, please," she muttered, holding out the two packages for his inspection. She placed them on the counter and dug in her jean pockets while he rang them up, trying to find the money she'd brought. She pulled the bill out triumphantly and dropped it into his hand, careful not to touch his hand on accident.

"Thank you. Come again," he said automatically with a smile just as mechanical, handing her the change owed. She smiled back and pocketed the money without counting it or even looking at it; money had stopped being something she and Angelina worried about, Angelina too haughty to worry, and she having bigger things to be concerned with. "Have a good day," he called after her as she left, snapping out of his reverie and offering genuine emotion. She paused; hand on the door handle, door half-open.

"I'll try," she sighed with a tired laugh.

* * *

Back at the warehouse, stillness reigned supreme. Wind outside tore at the walls, whistling through tiny cracks and being lost in the immenseness of the storage building, often without so much as stirring up dead leaves that had blown in earlier. A wall, cut off halfway up by the catwalk, had been covered in corkboard, insulating it against the wind, though that was merely a side affect, a useful occurrence that was an offshoot of prepping that wall for its current contents.

Newspaper clippings, some fluttering pitifully, others splayed out motionlessly, plastered to the wall, headlines screaming and crying for attention, battling each other for the notice of eyes that weren't even there. Each one varied in size and length, but they all focused on the same subject: kidnappings. "POLICE HAVE NO LEADS," one yelled from a front page. "Local Boy Goes Missing," whispered another, crammed into a small one-column space. A two-foot strip of the corked off wall that stretched from the bottom of the catwalk all the way to the floor had been sectioned off by duct tape, forming a long rectangle polluted with pictures. Each was of a different boy, some with different backgrounds, but all held the same fear and pain. Bruised faces, slit skin, and wide eyes looked at the camera; every picture was of one of the boys that had been kidnapped, taken a few days before they died.

Each was labeled, not in the cramped scrawl of Angelina, but the careful looping lettering of June's hand, giving each a name that Angelina seldom bothered to learn. Most frighteningly, the space was only half full, half of it empty and beckoning to be filled. The frozen faces stared silently, adding to the stillness. Down winding hallways, in a small, circular room, Beast Boy was sprawled out across the rickety bed, unmoving besides his slowly rising and falling chest, silent except for soft breathing. Sitting on one of the currently quiet speakers was a small digital camera, ready and waiting for someone to snap a picture.

* * *

_Dear City Officials,_ June wrote, _please make sure the Titans get the following message; it's very important:_ She paused, wondering what exactly she should write. She couldn't outright tell them the warehouse number; she had to get back before they did and distract Angelina, and make sure Beast Boy was still okay. She tapped the pen against the crumbling alley wall, the hard surface she had chosen to facilitate her writing. Besides, maybe if she explained the situation, she wouldn't get in as much trouble. She bit the pen cap, thinking.

That was it! As soon as they'd moved into the warehouse, she'd done some exploring. In one of the more hidden rooms, she'd found a two way television screen –well, the screen itself wasn't two ways; there was a small camera at the top of the screen, so the person you were talking to could see you as well as you saw them. She'd played around with it, and had figured out that it had, at one point in time, been used to communicate between the various departments that had been housed in the large building. However, she'd only found the one, the others had likely been removed when the place was abandoned or stolen shortly after, and Angelina didn't mind her tinkering around with it so long as it had nothing to connect to. Eventually, she'd found an unused frequency to set it to, after a couple of run-ins with users that had "reserved frequencies." She'd give them that. _Have you lost something important?_ she wrote. _Just set your communicators to this frequency at 7:00 tonight._ She scribbled the correct frequency down.

Biting her lip, she read back over the note. There was nothing that could identify where she was, or any other information she couldn't have the Titans knowing. She blew a stray hair out of her face and hesitantly wrote, _Signed, June_.

That would have to do it. She pulled away from the wall and ripped the note off the pad of paper, placing the pen in her teeth to free up her right hand as well. She bent down and picked up half of a brick, wrapping the note around it tightly. With a strip of plastic from the packaging, she tied it closed, so that the note wouldn't fall off. Silently concealing it with her hand, she walked out into the street and took a deep breath, closing her eyes.

With that, she let the brick fly, shattering a large display window on a little beauty boutique, and tore off in the opposite direction.

* * *

_Sorry if that ending seemed a little sudden, but I'm pushing my bedtime as it is because I really want to get this up tonight._

_Don't own them._

_...SnowFallsSlow...  
_


	19. The Company She Keeps

_I'm back again, in probably the fastest update you'll ever get from me again._

_ So, my friend got me the fourth season of Teen Titans on DVD (because her parents will only give her money to buy other people things, otherwise she'd have bought it for herself). She has the first three, and I got her the fifth for her birthday (yesterday). So, between the two of us, we now have the whole show on DVD. Yay!_

* * *

Starfire heard the glass shatter, shards tinkling across the ground. She flew higher, looking around for the source from above the rooftops. Across from AJ's Music Store, the crowd of people had become thinner, pedestrians avoiding the glass scattered on the floor. She swooped out of the air, stopping short of the ground and hovering. Looking around, she flew through the large hole in the glass, in search of the manager. "Hello?" she called. No answer came. Apparently, the workers had evacuated the front of the store for fear of another attack; such a thing was not unheard of in Jump City, because one was never sure when Cinderblock would come crashing through a wall, or one of the Titans would get haphazardly tossed through a window.

Something on the ground caught her eye. "What is this?" she pondered, touching down with a crunch of glass underfoot and gingerly reaching down to grab it. The object was largish; big enough that she had to hold it in both hands to avoid dropping it, and, though it had initially looked more like a wad of paper, she now realized it was a heavy rock that had been decorated with the blue paper. "How strange," she muttered, pulling aside the strip of plastic and unwrapping the rock.

As she pulled the paper away, she realized that there was writing on it and dropped the rock, more interested in this curious piece of paper that she had found. She read it over, gasped, and read it again, to ensure that she was not just imagining things. She pulled out her communicator and held down the button that let her speak to the others. "Friends," she said, "I believe I have found… one of Blue's Clues?"

* * *

"Starfire, what are you talking about?" Robin asked, raising an eyebrow. He was sitting at his computer, about to look back over the files that the Dark Knight had sent him. He was prepared now to find the murderer's pattern, where she had been and about how much time passed between the disappearance of a boy and the reappearance of a body, to estimate how long they had to find Beast Boy before he was just another life she'd claimed, a body that would show up on their doorstep, badly scarred like the others.

"This is not the correct expression for such a thing?" she responded innocently, holding up a blue note. Florescent lights above her head told him that she was in a local shop, so she'd likely noticed a commotion from above and decided to check it out. "But, it is a blue clue, correct? Does that not make it from the pleasant dog that helps to solve puzzles?"

"Not really, Star," responded Cyborg's voice, coming from Robin's communicator. The familiar background of the T-car framed his half of the screen, buildings whisking by out the windows; he was still looking. "Unless it has Blue's paw print on it, it's just a clue."

"Oh," she said, sounding a little disappointed. Beast Boy had suggested a while ago that Starfire try learning some things from television, because that might help her understand earthly expressions a little better. She'd taken to the idea with a level of enthusiasm that only she could muster, and, in six cases out of ten, it had actually helped. In the other four cases, however, it created things like this. "I see."

"At any rate," Robin interrupted, "what does the note say?" Starfire cleared her throat and looked down at the crumpled sheet of paper.

"_Dear City Officials,_" she read, "_please make sure the Titans get the following message; it's very important:_" She paused. "_Have you lost something important?_ -I believe she is speaking of Beast Boy, though we have not misplaced him- _Just set your communicators to this frequency at 7:00 tonight. _And then there is a list of numbers," she finished. Her green eyes turned back to the communicator she was holding as she looked at her friends.

"It's not a trap," Raven said suddenly. Robin looked over his shoulder. She was sitting on the couch with her third cup of tea, looking at him intently.

"What makes you so sure?" he asked.

"The note doesn't ask us to go anywhere, to disarm ourselves, or anything that would usually indicate a trap," she reasoned, pulling down her hood. "The only ones who would gain anything by getting us to turn on our screens are Control Freak-"

"Who's in jail," Cyborg cut in, sticking a finger in the air momentarily, as though that helped prove his point. Seconds later, though, his hand was back on the steering wheel, unwilling to risk a crash and waste time repairing either himself or the car. Raven nodded, taking a sip of her tea before continuing.

"In Steele City, no less. Or, it could be Mad Mod, but Beast Boy is the easiest of us to hypnotize, and he's not here. And it seems the writer of the note knows it." She looked pensively into her tea, both hands wrapped around it as though trying to keep them warm, and fell silent once again.

"Yes," agreed Starfire, nodding sagely, "this "June" is certainly aware that he is missing."

"What?" All three of them were surprised and let out the word, Raven going so far as to teleport behind Robin and peer at the screen over his shoulder, as though that would better her understanding of Starfire's odd statement.

"Starfire," Raven asked, raising an eyebrow, "who is June?" Starfire held up the note again, pointing awkwardly at the signature while trying to hold both her communicator and the clue.

"The one who wrote this letter. See? She was most polite and signed it." She blinked, uncertain as to why the others were confused.

"Now, why would a villain do a fool thing like that?" asked Cyborg, voice the question that was bothering both Raven and Robin as well. Robin's eyes went wide as he figured it out.

"Because the kidnapper wants to make sure we know it's her," he said, pulling up the images of the dead boys on his computer and sifting through them to find the one he was after. Raven peered at the computer screen over his shoulder, and let out a quiet gasp as the picture flooded the screen. There, on his monitor, was a boy probably Beast Boy's age, barefoot and hanging by his wrists in front of a middle school. Bloodied red hair hung unkempt in his face, insults etched with a blade and left to scar covered his arms and face. Written across his chest in what appeared to be lipstick were the words "With love for June."

* * *

_Disclaimer: I don't own the Teen Titans, although I've now seen more than half of the show._

_...SnowFallsSlow..._


	20. To Live In Peace

_Wow, it's been a very long time since I've updated this story, hasn't it? I know how I'm going to end it, I just needed something to get me on the way there. But, you lot didn't come here to read my author's note; scoot on down to the story!_

* * *

Angelina opened her eyes, stretching quietly. She stifled a yawn, looking around. She was leaning against the wall, right in front of the door to the little circular room. A crooked smile tugged at her lips; shuffling behind the door told her that her favorite plaything was awake, probably trying in vain to get free. She hauled herself to her feet, stretching again and adjusting her sunglasses. Playtime.

* * *

Beast Boy woke with a start, eyes snapping open, heart racing in his chest. He sat up, dazed. All he could remember was being terrified; how had he fallen asleep? His shoulders wrenched back, and he looked back in surprise. Handcuffs…? What had happened? He shook his head, eyes scrambling across the walls. Stacks of speakers towered menacingly, demonic in the dimness. Something was very wrong here, but he couldn't remember –wait. He gasped as the memories sped at him like a semi, lightning flashes of terror and pain storming behind his eyes. He had to get of this place, out of these handcuffs, out of this nightmare.

He closed his eyes and tried to slow his breathing, focusing on the form of a snake. He hadn't been able to shapeshift yet, but that didn't mean he had to stop trying. Much to his delight, he could feel his form starting to slip, his bones softening and grinding into each other as he traded short human fangs for sleek snake ones. And then, he was free.

A stunted, solitary laugh slipped from his lips as he snapped back to his humanoid form, giddy with freedom. He sat up, flinging his legs off the bed and standing on his own for the first time in what felt like years. He laughed again, running his fingers through sweaty green hair. All that was left was to get out of this accursed room, get outside and into the sky, get home.

Forest colored eyes scanned the padded wall for a door. Just as they stumbled across it, the handle turned. Fear sunk in his stomach, but he gritted his teeth and clenched his fist. This psycho was no worse than Slade; he wasn't going down without a fight this time. His bare feet padded rapidly across the ground as he hid himself, crouching to the side of the door and behind a stack of speakers. His little jailbreak was going to need the element of surprise to fool this warden.

* * *

Angelina opened the door slowly, hoping to catch the helpless hero by surprise. Her eyes, hidden behind orange lenses, darted to the bed, the crooked smile still playing at her lips. But her sad little toy was nowhere to be seen. Her eyes narrowed and she slipped into the room, slamming the door closed rapidly and clicking the lock shut with a snap of her fingers. He wasn't getting out that easily. "Come out, come out, wherever you- agh!" The rest of her taunt was caught in her throat as the striped fur of a tiger filled her vision and he landed on her, claws extended. Beast Boy snarled deep in his throat, then leapt away into the darkness, unwilling to get tangled once more in her power.

She climbed to her feet, breathing heavily. The low growl of a cat slunk around her, and her smile grew wide. "Here, kitty, kitty," she called blindly, her vision lost in the darkness in which she thrived. She twitched her hands, knocking over a set of speakers. The growl changed pitches and became a dog's howl, and out of the darkness bounded a bristling wolf. He knocked her into the wall; it groaned in protest, the wood starting to give behind the padding.

A pained groan forced its way between her clenched teeth. She raised her open hand and started to close her fist, tossing her power at him sightlessly in hopes of ensnaring him once more. Fluttering feathers told her she'd missed, and she laughed, eyes going wider in an attempt to see. Her grin broadened; this was the fight she'd been hoping for all along. "Wassa matter, pretty polly? Can't you-" An alligator –or was it a crocodile?- dropped from the sky and landed on her, knocking her flat and the air out of her lungs. Beast Boy slid into his human form and rolled off of her, his bare feet slapping against the concrete floor as he headed toward freedom. The door handle rattled as she stood slowly, gasping laughter echoing from her lips as she strained to catch her breath.

"Locked." She heard his mutter from across the room and threw her power out into the darkness again. A speaker clattered to the ground and he let out a pained cry; she'd missed him again, but the speaker hadn't. She ambled toward the door, the quiet shuffling telling her he'd moved again, that he wasn't there any longer. But that didn't matter, she had come up with a sudden plan, something more spur of the moment than she was used to. A few more steps, and she'd reach the light switch. She let out a frightened cry as he sprang up from the ground, his fist connecting with her nose. She hadn't expected the blow, or the strength behind it, and she was caught off guard and thrown off balance.

She landed without her characteristic grace, her head thwacking against the concrete and her sunglasses flying off her face and clattering away on the ground. And again, his focus was on the door, his capture a greater looming enemy than his subdued captor. No laughter bubbled up this time as she scrambled to her feet. He heard her coming and flitted away on delicate bird's wings. Wary of another attack, she darted to the light switch and cupped her hand over it. "Lights out, hero boy," she called, closing her eyes as she flipped the switch.

Wide-eyed in owl form when the lights switched on, Beast Boy fell out of the sky, letting out a pained cry. He hit the ground hard on his shoulder, landing on top of the sunglasses she hadn't bothered to look for. They cracked beneath his sudden weight, and he let out a groan, rolling onto his stomach and stumbling to his feet. He looked around uselessly, trying to stay upright as dizziness hit him hard. The light had blinded him; he had no idea where she was.

Her laughter rang out again; a high giggle that didn't fit the crazed grin he knew had to be adorning her face. The sound echoed around the little room, trapped by the soundproofed walls. He gritted his teeth against the terror rising in his stomach. He couldn't let her win.

* * *

_So ends another chapter. By the way, thanks to everyone who has reviewed; I've cracked the 100 mark for this story!_

_Let me know what you thought of Beast Boy's fighting style; shapeshifters are a pain in the rear._

_...SnowFallsSlow...  
_


	21. When You Hit Rock Bottom

_I have honestly been struggling with this chapter for months. Hopefully it isn't too bad... I have the next chapter one edit away from being finished, so there might actually be another update before the month is out. College has given me, surprisingly enough, _more_ free time than I had before._

_No excuses for the ages-long hiatus, although I do apologize._

* * *

Angelina flicked the light switch again, plunging the small arena back into darkness and opened her eyes. Now freed from the sunglasses, they were well adjusted; she could see Beast Boy clearly as he clutched his own, light-blinded eyes. She smirked, tensing her hand. He cast his hands roughly away from his face and cocked his head to the side, relying on another of his acute senses. Her fingers trembled; his ears twitched. She let out a single laugh, and he turned blindly towards her, his shape starting to shift.

But he was too slow. She tossed her power at him; tiny, invisible strings dragging the runaway puppet back into the puppeteer's clutches. "Stop." Her voice held an eerie note, her power making the command irresistible. His shape solidified and he froze. "Down." He hit the ground like he'd been flattened with a bulldozer and groaned, trying to climb back to his feet.

"No!" he cried when he realized he couldn't move. "No!" She smiled, a giggle rising in her throat again. She jerked her hand, twisting her wrist merrily as he stood slowly and trudged toward the rickety motel bed, still crying "No."

* * *

Robin flipped back and forth between the files he'd created by sifting through the digital paperwork that Bruce had sent him. Names, kidnap dates, and recovery dates had been listed and sorted chronologically; ages had been scatter-plotted across a large graph, the boys' names listed alphabetically across the x-axis. He tapped his chin, then selected an option to connect the dots. The line zigzagged wildly up and down the graph, a lie detector catching a whopper. He frowned. "There has to be some pattern," he muttered. Frustrated, he flipped to the chronological list of the boys, by kidnap date. There was no pattern there, either. He scoffed, looking down at his notes.

_No pattern_, he scribbled, then scratched it out irritably. "There's always a pattern." He sighed out his nose, looking back at the paper. _Only kidnaps one boy at a time; evidence: kidnap date (KD) of second boy usually 5 days after recovery date (RD) of first._ He circled "usually", then drew an arrow to the margin and scribbled _John Oliver – next taken 3 weeks after_. He added a large question mark. What had happened to make her break the pattern?

He flipped the paper over and started to draw a timeline, then thought better of it and turned to the computer. He opened a simplistic graphic designing program and drew a horizontal line, placing tic marks along its length. At the beginning, he opened a text box and typed, "2 1/2 years ago", then opened another text box at the other end and typed, "Present day." He filled in the kidnap and recovery dates for each boy in between, ending with yesterday's date, Beast Boy's kidnapping. Between each of the recovery dates, excluding, as he'd noted, John Oliver's, and the following kidnapping there were five days.

He sat up, frowning again. No, wait. John wasn't the only one to break the pattern. For each of the first five boys, the time between the day they were kidnapped and the day they were found lengthened almost exponentially, one day for the first and twenty five days for the fifth. Then she dropped off the grid for one month, and the same pattern repeated for another five boys. The pattern repeated for each set of five, with John once more the odd one out. He was the first after a month of silence, but his body wasn't recovered for eleven days after he was taken. Then, three weeks after he was found, another boy was taken -his body showed up the next day, like the killer was reestablishing the pattern over after a false start.

Robin tapped his chin, opening the photographs on a hunch. Sure enough, John Oliver was the boy from the middle school, with the message "With love for June." "Something _definitely_ happened there," Robin muttered. "But what?"

"I am not sure, Robin." He jumped at the sudden voice, his hand going to his utility belt as he turned the chair to face the speaker.

"Oh, Star." A nervous little laugh slipped out of his mouth. "You startled me." She brushed her hair behind her ear, giving a slight smile.

"If you are so jumpy," she said, holding up the mug she'd brought him, "perhaps you should not have this coffee after all." He reached for the cup, a small smile tugging at his mouth. She pulled it away playfully, but handed it to him as he started to stand up. He took a sip, allowing himself to relish the bitter taste of black coffee.

"You didn't add any mustard this time," he said, grateful.

"I did not think it would be best, considering what happened last time," she agreed. "But if you would like some…" She pulled out a mustard bottle, offering it to him and raising an eyebrow. He shook his head, laughing. She shrugged, twisting the lid off the bottle and taking a sip. Robin leaned back in his chair, taking a longer drink of his coffee. Starfire looked at the computer screen and leaned forward to inspect it. "What have you found, Robin?" she asked, her voice hopeful.

He turned back to the computer, setting his coffee aside and resting his hand on the mouse. "Not much. I've mostly been organizing the information Batman sent me." He minimized the timeline, opening the chronological list of boys on half the screen and the graph of ages on the other. The entirety of the list fit on its half screen, but the graph was cut off. Starfire studied the two pages silently, tapping her pursed lips.

"This list," she began, "it is organized by date, yes?" Robin nodded. "I wonder if you would organize it according to your alphabet?" Raising an eyebrow, Robin nodded again and obliged, sending the list cascading alphabetically. "Look," she said, pointing. "Each of these names starts with a different letter."

"Yeah, I had noticed that while I was making the graph. Adam all the way down to Zechariah." Starfire shook her head, touching the screen with her index finger.

"No, Robin. I meant their second names." Robin straightened in his chair, looking more closely. She was right. Adam Forrester, Benjamin Garrison, Caleb Hills, Dylan Isley, Edward Jacobs… starting with F, the last names also fell in alphabetical order. He glanced at the bottom of the list; A through E were represented -in order- there.

"You're right, Star. I hadn't seen that." She was singing the alphabet song under her breath and counting on her fingers, brows furrowed.

"The difference between the first letter of the first name and the first letter of the second name is five. Perhaps this is part of her "pattern"?" She tapped the scribbled out "_No pattern_" on his notes. He started to shake his head, but then glanced at his notes again.

"Five days later, five boys before the pattern repeats, five letters between the names… Starfire, you're right! It's the number five," Robin said, pen scratching across the paper with fervor. His brain was buzzing now. If the first boy was actually killed twenty-five hours after, not just the next morning, that was five times five, five again; she went under the radar for exactly thirty days, which was again divisible by five. That made five instances of five, especially considering the fifth boy was found twenty-five days after he'd been taken. So, five days, five boys, five letters, thirty days, twenty-five hours/days… that made five criteria. Smiling a little in spite of himself, he took a long drink of coffee.

* * *

_Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans._

_I had written myself into a corner, here, and the only way to handle all of this information became giving it to you all at once. Sorry about the info-dump.  
_

_...SnowFallsSlow..._


	22. Best Three Out Of Five

_Holy cow, another update already? I'm back to the writing schedule I had way back when I started this thing. We'll see how long it lasts.  
_

* * *

Starfire commandeered the mouse as the Boy Wonder drank his coffee. She wanted a better look at the graph that he had made of the boys' ages. The lines were too erratic for someone with a pattern, she had decided. Biting her lip in thought, she opened a menu to change the x-axis of Robin's graph. When the names had been organized differently, they had borne a new clue. Maybe the ages would do the same. She chewed her lip, eyes scanning the page, but she couldn't see a way to implement the system she wanted. "Robin?" she asked.

"Hmm?" He was to the bottom of his coffee cup, and stood, either to get a refill or to put the dish in the sink.

"Could you help me?" He nodded in response, setting the coffee mug down and stretching –he'd been sitting for far too long.

"What d'you need?" he asked, peering at the screen over her shoulder.

"Could this graph be organized by the dates that the boys were taken?" The young acrobat tipped his head to the side, thinking.

"Yeah. Here, lemme see." He grabbed the mouse and clicked, his fingers flying over the number keypad as he entered dates in place of names, easing himself back into the chair as he typed. His hand darted out for the mouse again, a cat pouncing on its prey, and, with a few deft clicks, he had opened another menu and satisfied her request. The lines that connected the ages became less exaggerated. "Better?" Robin asked.

"Yes, thank you." He stood back up, off on the mission she'd called him from. The alien princess started scrutinizing the lines. In the background, the microwave whirred to life; he was after more coffee after all. The graph stretched across the whole screen now, and she still had to scroll back and forth to see the ends of it. The microwave beeped; moments later his metallic footsteps, muffled by carpet, sounded behind her, drawing smoothly closer. The alien princess was scrolling back and forth quickly now, frustrated there was no easy pattern in the lines.

"Wait." Robin's gloved hand lighted on hers, stopping her scrolling in its tracks. "The longest line from one age to the next is five months." She scrolled slowly to the beginning, then all the way to the end.

"Hmm. Another five," she mused, vaguely nodding her agreement.

* * *

Angelina had rebound her captive, slowly and almost lovingly, taking her agonizing time over it. She tried to force Beast Boy to remain completely still for the entire ordeal, but her power was not as influential over him after his short courtship with freedom. His once minute squirming had evolved into actual evasion, weak though his motion was. She was more than a little surprised to have to physically hold his arm in place as she cuffed him to the bed, and only slightly less elated at his ability to fight now that she'd done battle with the shapeshifter and seen how difficult it was.

He was trapped, now, though. She could feel him trying to change under her power, tugging at the little strings that held him fast. The way he was acting, she wouldn't be able to withdraw her power until she'd played the game all the way to the end, and that wouldn't be for quite some time; perhaps she'd have to drug him again. A frown tugged at her lips. Where were her sunglasses? Her unprotected eyes darted around the dark room until they stumbled across the crushed frames. She sauntered over to them, crouching to pick up the pieces of her favorite fashion statement, sans her knife and the blood it drew.

"You broke my glasses," she murmured, looking over her shoulder at the boy. She glanced down at the bent frame and broken orange reflection she cupped in her hands. Her brows furrowed and she straightened, turning to face the tethered changeling. "Stand." He started to sit up, eyes going wide as the bonds held him back. A tiny smile pushed up at the corner of her mouth as he screamed, straining to obey her command, desperate to get off the bed, but held back by her handcuffs, forced to writhe in pain to no avail. "Serves you right," she muttered.

* * *

Robin took a sip of his third cup of coffee, then frowned.

"It's too cold. I'll be right back." Starfire raised an eyebrow, confused. He had nearly dropped it when he removed it from the machine a few minutes ago, and had left it to cool on the counter. Now it was too cold? The microwave whirred back to life in the little kitchenette. Shrugging, she opened the timeline Robin had pieced together and glanced down at the notes he'd written on his scratch paper. _The pattern repeats every 5 vics, _his neat handwriting whispered. The name John Oliver had been circled and underlined a few times, and there was a question mark next to it.

"Robin?" Starfire called over her shoulder. "Who is this John that has you so flustered?"

"Not really sure," Robin responded, eyes on the glowing green countdown to hot coffee. "He's the pattern breaker."

"What do you mean by that?" The microwave beeped before he could respond. With the press of a button and a billow of steam, the door jumped open to reveal his prize.

"Just a second, I'll come over and show you." He let out a little gasp and dropped the mug on the counter. "Ow, that's hot!" He glared at the offending cup of coffee and retreated to the computer, leaving it to cool off. "Look," he said, leaning over Starfire's shoulder. "She has a definite pattern. The first boy she takes, she only keeps for twenty-five hours before dumping the body. But that amount of time gets longer the further into the pattern she gets, ending at the fifth boy, who she keeps for twenty-five days."

"To prolong a death for that long…" Starfire shuddered a little. "Robin, these boys, they have suffered many injuries, have they not?" He nodded. She opened a picture of one of the bodies, then pulled up the profile for the same boy. "This boy, she only kept him for hours. How is he so scarred?" Robin frowned. "See? His skin is clear in this photograph, but in this one…"

"I've been thinking about that myself. He shouldn't have any scarring at all; doesn't make any sense. At any rate, though, about John-" She jumped suddenly, stopping him mid-sentence.

"You said that the first boy in the pattern, he only lives for how long?"

"Twenty-five hours. Well, probably a little less than that, because she needs time to dump the body. Why?" She didn't respond for a second, instead consulting the documents on the computer worriedly, her movements with the mouse jagged and clicks impatient.

"This is the last boy that was recovered, correct?" She indicated the screen, her finger shaking.

He cast a glance where she was pointing and nodded. "Yeah. Star, what's going on?" She spun the chair to look at him, her eyes wide with an abrupt fear.

"Robin, Beast Boy is the first boy in the new pattern."

* * *

_I hate the chapter title for this one. Anyone got a better suggestion?  
_

_...SnowFallsSlow..._


End file.
